Essentially, there have been two reactions over on grad today:
- I didn’t vote, neither of the candidates were going to stop the war in the Gaza Strip, therefore, there could be no good outcome for the US, therefore I can’t be held accountable
- I voted for a third party, which Republicans will have to acknowledge and respect
Mmm, that link doesn’t say what you say it says. All it says is that The Trevor Project has gotten an increased call volume about election-related things after Trump won the presidency – what a shock. It does not mention anything at all apart from this, even the things I would have expected it to mention, like how many of the new callers were contemplating ending their own lives.
Additionally, I’m not sure how Drag could have made it more clear what Drag wants us to do about the fact that moderates are not our allies. And I’m not sure how much more clear I can make it that I still don’t really want to commit a felony in the name of politics. Punching people in the face, sure, fine. Pepper spray, why not. But I don’t like murdering people in the streets, especially not people whose only crime is being white, uneducated, and afraid of anything they don’t understand. Or just more scared of the police than they are of the rebels.
Lastly, I’m truly shocked by how easily you can insist that you think politically motivated violence is bad and not something that someone like Drag would advocate for and insinuate it is necessary in the same breath. You’ve been doing it this whole conversation, but you actually said both things that time.
Had to take some time away, so, sorry about not getting back to you earlier. It may, perhaps, be that I was unintentional “putting words in drag’s mouth”. My interpretation of it had been grief and despair over losing people and at the prospect of losing more, together with the realization that civil rights look to be going backwards about a century.
When it comes to violence/non-violence, non-violence is my way, wherever possible. I feel strongly that every human being is important (yes, a bit anthropocentric). However, I am also privileged as fuck, being a cis/het white guy. I’m not about to tell those facing violent repression that they wrong for returning the favor to their oppressors and those who are collaborating. Historically, non-violence has primarily succeeded where the alternative was violence and stable societal change has generally only occurred where non-violence was also in the picture.
I think a lot of people don’t understand just how bad the situation is. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that literal fascists have been have the reigns to all branches of US government. They have long stated the desire to rollback every positive change since and including the New Deal.
Since they now have majorities on both chambers of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the executive branch, they have been granted unfettered power over lifetime judicial appointments. And, since they continually act in bad faith and so much of the system is built upon the assumption of people acting on good faith, there are no barriers to their goals. Unconstitutional? The Roberts Court has continually shown that they don’t care about the Constitution except for where they can leverage it to have power over others.
The BEST case scenario among those that are likely is a rollback of all environmental, civil, and labor protections to the state at the turn of the 20th century, making the positive motion that we have had since then, the outlier in that the country was tending towards more justice. That’s over and no non-violent protest alone will be bringing it back.
you’re still doing it.