Resistance Will Continue

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My biggest fear when Doughface Donny took
office was that the "Second Amendment People" would immediately start a reign of terror to match their violent rhetoric because he could just pardon anyone who killed, beat up, or intimidated any activist, organizer, or journalist. So far that has not come to pass. But it could happen at any time, a coordinated assassination campaign against any individual or group deemed "leftist." The possibility has skyrocketed in the wake of a white, male baby boomer shooting up Congress members at the baseball diamond.

See what I did there? Normally you have to go to a top rated journalism school to pull that off. Everything in that description is correct, but the wording activates frames that a gun-control advocate can appreciate. It just so happens that this violent male baby boomer with a history of domestic abuse was also the worst possible Bernie Bro. It doesn't matter that he hated Hillary Clinton and the DNC at least as much as he hated republicans, he must be a liberal. And like all liberals, he burned with white-hot passion to gun down republicans. Right? Because that happens all the time. In the delusions of republicans at least.

What happens in just about every comment thread where authoritarian maga people provoke and

 provoke and provoke until a liberal says "I hate you!" Exactly, "Oh, what about those tolerant, compassionate liberals?" As though the previous nine comments of "fuck you loser, sissy LIEberal, libtard, moocher parasite" never happened. Or just don't count. I know I have been holding back like crazy. Apparently all but one of us silly leftists have the Yoda mindset towards aggression. Compassion, non-violence, empathy... "once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny." How has that been working out for the children of light?

Before inauguration day I wrote about Doughface Donny activating the primitive honor systems in so many white people. Weakness was to be despised, as was not standing up for your honor. A comment made on my last post about the shooting said my wording struck a chord that he always instinctively knew:

So the trick for both social dominators and the right wing followers is how to set up the dehumanized liberal that is both all-powerful and threatening but weak and helpless at the same time. All good scapegoats have this characteristic...

There's no good way to respond to bullying. But dollars to donuts if the victim just goes limp the bully will just keep beating them and lose any fear of a response. Taking the non-violent approach to politics when the other side is 100% committed to beating you by whatever means, is almost guaranteed to continue. They have nothing to fear. The maga people and crazy uncle liberty know you cannot or will not hurt them, and they can shoot out any length of insults and non sequiturs to drown any rational argument. As driftglass always says: they want to make liberals cry, that is the only part of "conservatism" left. Aggression is synonymous with authoritarianism, but it is the violence that can be done with impunity that followers are more predisposed to. The victim must be despised, but also incapable of fighting back. So when liberals unilaterally disarm, literally or metaphorically, they leave themselves open to attack.

This is what Doughface Donny had in mind when he said he would pay the legal fees of anyone who beat up protesters at his rallies. It may be old hat by now, but when you put a bunch of authoritarian followers together who are burning with hatred of all kinds in a room where they outnumber the protesters by a large margin, there is going to be violence. The same holds true online. One troll can derail an entire discussion, and they know it. They also know that there is nothing we can do to them.

I'm trying to keep in mind two axioms of Reinhold Niebuhr. War is never inevitable, as long as it hasn't happened, any war can be prevented. The maga people want us to be afraid, but we're not. Despite controlling everything, they still pretend to be outsiders, rebels. Perhaps they realize how fragile that control is, and that the republican elites they put in power (with lots of help from Russia, et al.) really do not care about them. They surrendered their American identity and values for what? They got nothing out of the bargain, just a feeling of victory. A feeling that will turn more and more towards the stuff of nightmares

Second is the Niebuhrian defense of democracy. Today is not like yesterday, conditions and society constantly change. Therefore democracy is the best way of responding to the needs of today and tomorrow. Attitudes change and society needs to adapt to changing circumstances all the time. There should be no set in stone ideals, non-violence is a fine idea but it can get you killed. So, objective reality check: Republicans were putting cross-hairs on Democrats for years, a Democratic congress member was shot along with others, tea baggers were violent and disruptive for years, so-called conservatives' rhetoric has been way over the top for years. and the same congress members who got shot at were bragging about shooting government officials when they didn't get their way. One side is incorrigibly violent in word and deed. Niebuhr knew that tyranny had to be resisted, he would not sit idly by as tyranny takes hold in America no matter how much the tyrants claimed they loved freedom. He would not be fooled, he would not allow others to be fooled by these man-children. Americans who love democracy and freedom, not the oppression and prejudice masquerading as American ideals.