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
We agree entirely there.
But, people are currently dying and will likely still be in larger numbers due to “allies” who care more about there own egos and performative leftism than other people. We’ve got a fascist party that has achieved, as of January, full control of the federal government and has stated that they’re going to do some genocide. The reasonable thing is to believe them.
That’s true. And yet, somehow, committing politically motivated murder remains pretty high on my list of things to not do.
I think that, perhaps, you’re not understanding. I didn’t read that as drag calling for politically-motivated murder. It was drag acknowledging that, if the fascists do a fraction of what they’ve promised, trans rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, among many others are over in this country for the lifetimes of everyone currently living and probably several generations more.
This wasn’t just another “4 years until the next election”. Democracy and human rights are not going to be restored in this country through political means. That shit’s over because of non-voters and everyone else that refused to take it seriously.
Tell me how else I am supposed to interpret this, please.
I’d recommend reading Dr. King’s letter from Birmingham Jail. Drag is coming to terms with the fact that Dr. King was right but his statement also applies to the plight of all marginalized people.
In addition, once they’re in power, fascists do not voluntarily leave while they are still alive. I’m not personally calling for violence but, non-voters have helped to remove the ballot box as a tool for any meaningful change for anyone currently living or coming generations. The courts are gone along with any hope of free and fair elections. That’s something that you need to understand. A lot of people are in complete denial of that and will remain so as the pressure ramps up.
People who remain moderates and centrists are going to be those who inform on their trans and immigrant neighbors in order to try to keep out of the line of fire and keep pretending that everything is “normal”.
I’m reading/skimming the letter now, and while I’m definitely not going to read the whole thing (good grief that sucker is long), what I am reading, I agree with quite enthusiastically. Especially the parts about how everyone needs to be concerned about injustice, not just the people it directly affects, and how nonviolent protests that break a law to demonstrate that the law is unjust can be effective.
Yet still, somehow, politically motivated murder remains what Drag was pretty explicitly calling for when Drag said “we need to be prepared to kill them”, and what Dr. King was pretty explicitly talking about not doing when he said “We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: ‘Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?’ ‘Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?’”, and something I’m pretty expicitly still not on board with.
Expand your horizons. Sometimes reading long things is worth it
Dr. King was a firm believer in non-violence, true. His non-violence was counter-balanced by MalcomX and the Black Panthers. The powers in charge had to choose.
Drag was not stating that people should go out and murder their neighbors. Drag was saying that, in resistance to fascists that want to murder LGBTQ+ people, moderates and centrists have proven again that they are not allies to the oppressed (like Dr. King stated just over 60 years ago) and will likely be among those collaborating with the oppressors in order to maintain a new status quo.
While I don’t agree with violence in most cases, I’m not trans and what we’re seeing is not most cases - it’s not even The South under Jim Crow. It is much, much worse. I don’t see the country isn’t coming back from this, even if they implement only a fraction of what they have stated that they want - the courts are not correctable through any political action in the lifetime of anyone currently living. The highest court in the country that can override all others has signaled that they would like to revisit decisions allowing same-sex and inter-racial marriage as well as transforming the presidential office into a kingship.
LGBTQ+ people who want to live are going to have no choice but to use violence to defend themselves. Because, as drag pointed out, they have been betrayed by both moderates/centrists AND far-left anti-electoralists/accelerationists who were overjoyed to sacrifice them for their political ends. Neither can be counted on as allies.
LGBTQ+ people are already dying because of this election: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/blog/the-trevor-project-shares-post-election-day-crisis-contact-volume-data/
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.
Seems clear.