Thursday, January 26, 2017

Protesting on the sidelines

I found this status this weekend from an old Army buddy. He was one of the good ones, competent, strong leadership abilities, and always commanded respect from us because he actually cared about his troopers. He isn't normally political so it was surprising to see.
So I have a question if people are protesting the president how many of those protesters really voted, and if you are protesting the president are you also protesting the people of the United States who voted for him? If so you are also protesting the right to vote and who to vote for?
Now, under normal circumstances (i.e. from a known trump-supporting, republican troll) I would react pretty violently to this kind of baiting. But I will try to address this question calmly.

First of all, none of this is normal. You may hold some quaint nostalgic view of the Grand Old Party, but those of us who have been paying attention for the last couple decades (and those of us who have researched extremism) are quite aware that there is nothing "conservative" about the republican party today. Instead, it has much more in common with authoritarian banana republics and even darker fascist regimes and parties. The almost exclusively white base of the republican party rejects basic American values such as equality, the rule of law, a loyal opposition, and pluralism. Instead they embrace tribalism, scapegoating, eliminationist rhetoric and sometimes action, and the absolute rejection of legitimacy in political opponents. The office holders and candidates for the republican party preached a contradictory soup of free markets, small government, and strong national defense until recently that was completely turned on its ear. You basically need a decoder ring to figure out how their actions square with the historic platform that I will not go into here.


The appropriate question is not how many really voted, but how many wanted to vote but couldn't. This year the republicans succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in suppressing turnout. And we will never actually know if anyone's vote actually counted because most precincts use optical scan or touch screen voting machines. I won't repeat all the investigative work that election integrity advocate Brad Friedman has done over the years, I will just link to his work. So to skip ahead, the people who have demonstrated since the election are not protesting the right to vote, whatever that means, they want the right to vote and to have their votes count. Something that the Voting Rights Act was meant to address but has sadly passed into the dustbin of history.

Yes, people are protesting republicans! From this know-nothing Russian puppet doughface who now occupies the office of the president, to the obstructionist republican congress, to yes and absolutely yes we are protesting the republican voters. You Sarge of all people should know that ignorance is no excuse when it comes to fucking up. You also know that guilt by association and collective punishment is wrong but none of you differentiate between the handful of anarchists who broke some windows, etc. and the huge majority of demonstrators who did not. However, when you disregard the fact that the most horrible people in America such as the KKK and neo-nazis were enthusiastically supporting trump because of his racism and plans to discriminate and harm many Americans that should have set off warning bells, yes you are the problem.

Yes, the hateful jerks who voted for trump because of or in spite of his racism, misogyny, refusal to release his tax returns, and myriad other crimes against democracy and American values deserve to be protested. They are the problem, and you join their ranks if you do not see the problem with electing someone so bent on extreme vengeance for any petty slight, no experience or qualifications for office, and who lies with practically every breath. The 62 odd million morons who have no excuse for not knowing all of these things are a clear and present danger to the continued existence of the American republic. So yes, they were protesting you for putting us all in danger.

Finally, as an experienced, professional soldier you should know better than to believe what you hear without question. Ignorance is no excuse, simply googling the idea or claim made by remote or even anonymous people reveals the truth fairly easily if you can look past your prejudices. When, as some dingbat in the comments under your post claims that all those people protesting were paid by Hillary Clinton and George Soros, you encounter a spurious assertion it is not exactly taxing your civic responsibility to look it up and peruse a small number of the over 73,000 hits on the subject. 

I expected better from someone I respect on so many levels. But like so much in this world, if you wait a while it will always let you down. The damage you and your fellow republicans have inflicted will trickle down to you. It may be thrilling to see despised outgroups harmed first, but as Niemöller put it, eventually there will be no one left to stand up for you.

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