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Or, you know, that
Oct. 17th, 2016 11:51 pmWhat I dithered around and took three hours of writing to almost say the other day, the Rude Pundit actually got around to in a few paragraphs.
But I know a shit-ton of people down South and in the Midwest, working- and middle-class whites, most of whom never went to college, some not even graduating from high school, who think Donald Trump is a fucking hateful fraud, a showboating pissant, and a giant talking turd. When you try to "figure out" what drives Trump supporters and think that those of us who say, "Yeah, fuck them" are smug coast-clinging liberals, you are insulting the fuck out of the millions of people in Trump country who grew up in similar circumstances and decided that being racist, sexist, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, and conspiracy-theory-loving jerk is wrong
Right, that.
I don't fully agree with him on the best response to the Orange County firebombing incident -- which by the way, happened while I was at a party about five fucking miles from there, so that's fun. I think being "better people" is a necessary strategic move. Ten thousand dollars, give or take, is pocket change; the Republicans have raised millions of dollars for this election; a few bucks ain't gonna mean you've single-handedly re-elected McCrory, but maybe it does mean that we can credibly claim we're holding the line against political violence. You can't just say you condemn it; everyone says they condemn that kind of thing, and the difference between "I actually condemn fighting this battle with Molotov cocktails" and "Officially of course I condemn this, but c'mon, basically they deserved it, we all know this," is whether not we *do something.* This little bit of money is a sheerly symbolic something, but it's an action. I learned from the anti-choice movement that if you say you condemn something but don't lift one finger to oppose it, people will rightly assume you don't actually condemn that thing at all, no matter what you say.
And I think it's important to condemn this, not because I like my moral purity -- though it's definitely not a *great* look to spend a week clutching our democracy pearls when Donald Trump says "special prosecutor," but suddenly find our cuticles extremely enthralling when campaign volunteers are intimidated by violence -- but mostly because my team is not equipped to win a shooting war if one gets underway. So I'd really like to prevent one, if at all possible.
Anyway, if anyone's curious, I'm 100% sure I know who's responsible. There's a horrible nest of self-righteous anarchist assholes in Orange County who are a perpetual thorn in the side of anyone trying to protest or demonstrate in this area. They always show up, they try to gin up conflict, they set the cops on edge, they break shit, and they vanish and leave the damage and the retaliation for the POC community to clean up. They're fucking insufferable, and I hope they go to jail for this, every damn one of them. Mary once got in a confrontation with a couple of them who were trying to topple a large Durham city dumpster into the street during a protest of the Freddie Gray verdict. Their self-satisfied, strategy-free black bloc white-savioring is something that Black Lives Matter, among other groups, has actively had to figure out how to work around. This shit has their fingerprints all over it, especially if reports are true that the county Democratic headquarters was vandalized the same night with "Death to Capitalism" graffiti. (Local news is reporting that people "claim" it was, but it's not clear to me yet if there are photos or evidence.)
Days of Rage is a really great book, by the way. I read it last spring, and it's given me a lot to think about since then. Re-litigating the 90s is unfun enough, y'all. Let's not do the 70s again. Nobody ever liked the 70s.
But I know a shit-ton of people down South and in the Midwest, working- and middle-class whites, most of whom never went to college, some not even graduating from high school, who think Donald Trump is a fucking hateful fraud, a showboating pissant, and a giant talking turd. When you try to "figure out" what drives Trump supporters and think that those of us who say, "Yeah, fuck them" are smug coast-clinging liberals, you are insulting the fuck out of the millions of people in Trump country who grew up in similar circumstances and decided that being racist, sexist, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, and conspiracy-theory-loving jerk is wrong
Right, that.
I don't fully agree with him on the best response to the Orange County firebombing incident -- which by the way, happened while I was at a party about five fucking miles from there, so that's fun. I think being "better people" is a necessary strategic move. Ten thousand dollars, give or take, is pocket change; the Republicans have raised millions of dollars for this election; a few bucks ain't gonna mean you've single-handedly re-elected McCrory, but maybe it does mean that we can credibly claim we're holding the line against political violence. You can't just say you condemn it; everyone says they condemn that kind of thing, and the difference between "I actually condemn fighting this battle with Molotov cocktails" and "Officially of course I condemn this, but c'mon, basically they deserved it, we all know this," is whether not we *do something.* This little bit of money is a sheerly symbolic something, but it's an action. I learned from the anti-choice movement that if you say you condemn something but don't lift one finger to oppose it, people will rightly assume you don't actually condemn that thing at all, no matter what you say.
And I think it's important to condemn this, not because I like my moral purity -- though it's definitely not a *great* look to spend a week clutching our democracy pearls when Donald Trump says "special prosecutor," but suddenly find our cuticles extremely enthralling when campaign volunteers are intimidated by violence -- but mostly because my team is not equipped to win a shooting war if one gets underway. So I'd really like to prevent one, if at all possible.
Anyway, if anyone's curious, I'm 100% sure I know who's responsible. There's a horrible nest of self-righteous anarchist assholes in Orange County who are a perpetual thorn in the side of anyone trying to protest or demonstrate in this area. They always show up, they try to gin up conflict, they set the cops on edge, they break shit, and they vanish and leave the damage and the retaliation for the POC community to clean up. They're fucking insufferable, and I hope they go to jail for this, every damn one of them. Mary once got in a confrontation with a couple of them who were trying to topple a large Durham city dumpster into the street during a protest of the Freddie Gray verdict. Their self-satisfied, strategy-free black bloc white-savioring is something that Black Lives Matter, among other groups, has actively had to figure out how to work around. This shit has their fingerprints all over it, especially if reports are true that the county Democratic headquarters was vandalized the same night with "Death to Capitalism" graffiti. (Local news is reporting that people "claim" it was, but it's not clear to me yet if there are photos or evidence.)
Days of Rage is a really great book, by the way. I read it last spring, and it's given me a lot to think about since then. Re-litigating the 90s is unfun enough, y'all. Let's not do the 70s again. Nobody ever liked the 70s.
