So...this has been pointed out by some recently and I kind of had thoughts about it myself, but yeah. The cognitive dissonance on the right is wild. Much of that movement is only held together by collective hatred of racial minorities. I mean, you had the southern strategy which gave rise to the fiscal conservatism of the 1980s, and I can basically say, if you grew up not understanding the dog whistles like I did, okay, maybe it just went over your head, but older generations and those in the southern states DEFINITELY knew what they were doing. And during the trump era, that stuff has gotten way more blunt and in your face, with much of trumpism being driven by fear of whites losing majority status and the political implications of such a shift (I mean, come on, it's undeniable at this point, the dogs arent even whistling any more, they're barking loudly). I won't say everyone on the right is racist, but much like that fox news helicopter in the Simpsons, they're #1 with racists. And....a lot of people seem on board with this latent and sometimes not so latent racism....until it affects them.
It actually reminds me of this 1940s era PSA against fascism, which has come up again more recently as being very reminiscient of what's going on in the Trump years. And I can't help but think of people like, say, Ben Shapiro, and Mark Levin, ya know, these conservative commentators who are Jewish and have been kinda punching down at everyone else for years or even decades now, but then when they suddenly find the shoe on the foot and then as the "other", they start screaming about how we need to deplatform the radicals who are badmouthing them like Nick Fuentes. It's like...bruh. You were ready to agree with these guys when they were punching down on everyone else, but when it's you, it's different. You don't want these guys to go after you.
Well, that's what these exclusionary fascists do. They define us into us and them, and basically, we're seeing the same crap we saw back then happen today. And Nick Fuentes? He's that guy handing out his pamphlets. He's the guy who basically is like a white nationalist who wants to deport people and have a catholic theocracy. He's the dude who has, in the past, said Hitler had the right idea, and to my knowledge, still hasn't recanted that one. And the rest of the conservatives are going "bruh..."
The undercurrents of this stuff have always been present. Quite frankly, I thought for a while, the best approach was to ignore and marginalize them. You're always going to have extremists in our midst. A small portion of the population are going to be fascists, and a small portion on the left are going to be tankies. It happens. The point is, keeping them marginalized. The best way to keep them inert, and this is why I was pretty mum on this a decade ago, was to ignore them. To NOT give them air time. And to instead have more productive outlets for our frustrations like fixing the problems reaganism created.
But...we fed the trolls, after I warned us NOT to feed them, and a decade later, white nationalism has grown and is now a serious threat to our country. It has taken root in the republican party like a cancer, and is even present in the trump movement, if it isn't at the very heart of it. Like, seriously, you look at them and tell me. Trump at the very least flirts with white supremacist sentiments, if he isn't outright doing what they want with his "deportation" plans and flagrant disregard for the law. We're at scary times. And it seems obvious that at least part of the reason the republicans have gone this way is because they fear whites becoming a minority in this country. They think that if the world doesn't revolve around white people and their ideas, that we're doomed for various reasons. Some of this fear comes from the potential decline in some values associated with WASPs like protestant Christianity, work ethic, and industriousness (ya know, all those things my own ideology is built in opposition to), some of it just comes from fear of what comes next. Eurocentric colonialists have dominated the world for the past 500 years and have forced their values on others and oppressed them, many people just fear what will replace those values and whether that will lead to the oppression of whites. Which leads to some pretty crazy takes. Just take Mamdani winning for example. The right is FREAKING OUT thinking he's gonna impose like Islamic theocracy on people. And he's not. He just wants to lower the cost of living for New Yorker, yeah, his ideas are a little socialistic, but most of them aren't even bad. It's nuts.
Seriously, how about NO racial group oppresses others? What if the values we center our society around are things like multiculturalism, inclusivity, and tolerance? I'm not saying you have to like everything other people do, but if they're not affecting others' lives negatively, maybe just leave them be? It's not that hard. If anything that's at the heart of what I THOUGHT America was about, and that's FREEDOM. Ya know, we all have our ways of doing things, but as long as we stay out of each others' way, who cares? And as far as that common ethos that binds us, again, why not just build on the whole life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness thing? I'd add reduction of suffering as a 4th value, but yeah. Preserving life, reducing suffering, giving people freedom, and letting them do what makes them happy. Why not model American society on that? Most of this stuff isn't new, it's what I thought we were supposed to do all along, and now we got this weird christian/white nationalist movement that wants to basically go the nazi route instead? Wtf?
I know, I'm kinda just ranting and going on a tangent at this point, but still, to go back to the core thing. Conservatives were okay with punching down until someone punched down at some of them and now they're acting like cancel culture happy leftists. It's weird. But it's also like, gee, you bash us on the left all the time for drawing lines MUCH earlier (and even I believe we were too aggressive and proactive with it with the overt "wokeness" crap), but now you do it yourselves when it affects you?
Anyway, cat's out of the bag. Fascism is here. Which side are you on? Will you side with the fascists? or with the American values of liberty and tolerance, ie, the things that make us better than those fascists? Because, I still believe in my heart of hearts, "we don't do that crap here", and seeing Americans literally trying to "do that crap" it's just...wtf people? Yeah, we gotta stop this. So again, which side are you gonna be on? You're either for the fascists or against them. We dont have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines any more. Think about that going into 2026 and 2028.
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