Tuesday, January 10, 2017

The progressive letting it all hang out

The title is "I love America, it's Americans I hate".  Give you any clue to what's to come?
...The time for civil discourse and debate is over, they say; the only course left now is resistance. A few of us are talking, after a couple drinks, about buying guns; if it comes to a fascist state or civil war, we figure, we don't want the red states to be the only ones armed.
From someone who probably screamed 'Insurrectionist!' or something similar when someone pointed out the real purpose of the 2nd Amendment.

And just how much time do you think they'll spend at the range learning to use the guns they despise?  Assuming they actually buy them.

Like a lot of people, I'm still trying to figure out what policy to adopt, and what marginal role I can play, in the incoming dystopia. My official policy toward a Trump administration is straightforward enough (even if implementing it won't be): Defy, paralyze, and undermine it in any way I can. What's going to be more complicated is formulating some coherent attitude toward the 62 million of my fellow Americans who elected that administration. How to reconcile my convictions with the actual human beings — family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors — who voted for this man?
From one of the people passing around that poster that 'Saying you'll work against the President is TREASON!' 
Of course, that was when a Democrat was President.

A vote cast for Trump is kind of like a murder; there may be context to consider — a disadvantaged background, extenuating circumstances, understandable motives — but the choice itself is binary and final, irrevocable. There's a case to be made that it's indefensible; that his supporters have forfeited any right to be respected or taken seriously.
'Taken seriously' is the least of his contempt.
The conservatives of the heartland have lashed back against the coastal elites' condescending, classist prejudices by defiantly confirming them: that they're pathetically dumb and gullible, uncritical consumers of any disinformation that confirms their biases, easy dupes for any demagogue who promises to bring back the factories and keep the brown people down. 

Ignorance and bigotry are actually the best possible motives for having voted for Trump — they are at least honest, if not honorable. But I don't believe all Trump voters are ignorant, or bigoted; most of them are just evil — evil being defined not as anything so glamorous as beheading journalists or gunning down grade schoolers, but simply as not much caring about other people's suffering.
And there's the final: if you voted for Trump, you're EVIL.  And you can do anything to fight Evil, right?

Toward the end he tries to- somewhat- soften this, but I don't really buy it; he'll give some tolerance to the two people he knows(that he knows of) who voted for Trump, but that's probably it.  After all, he knows what's Right and Wrong, and everyone who cast a wrong vote is WRONG, and must be made to suffer for it.

Asshole would probably have been a fine commissar back in the Soviet Union, when he'd be able to kill people guilty of wrongthink and be praised for it.

Yes, the link is to Insty.  If you want to read the whole thing, he's got the link.

4 comments:

A Texan said...

I hate both parties for the most part, but went with Trump to see the libtards cry like the whiny bitches they are.

I have no problem telling most people that I'm glad I never joined the military since few of them have a life or property worth defending.

KM said...

Liberal heads exploding.
I can't think of anything more fun than that! I really hope that the 2018 congressional races bite them in the ass too.

Jerry The Geek said...

Tell the truth and spite the devil; I voted for Trump because the only alternatives were (1) vote for another damn Clinton, or (2) don't vote at all.

In the event, I voted for the least despicable candidate; and I admit that the choice was quite clear, if uncomfortable.

The two-part punch-line to this joke of an election is that (A) people are now trying to make me feel guilty because I voted for Trump, and (B) if I had voted for Hillary, I would feel guilty without any outside help at all.

And if there is any such thing as a three-sided joke, it's that a lot of people who supported Clinton are posting on the internet as if that bitch is some kind of a saint.

Which only confirms that I made the correct (if difficult) decision. I have grown accustomed to voting for Liars and Charletons, but I'm glad I didn't have to vote for a Clinton!

Firehand said...

Jerry, that pretty well covers it