First, Don’t Normalize It
Many people are starting to normalize what happened twelve days ago. They’re starting to say “Oh, he won’t be that bad, he can’t be.” Or “It can’t happen here. We have a Constitution and laws.” Or “Let’s try to understand the people who voted for him, so we can appeal to their needs.” Or any number of other things that are designed (perhaps unconsciously) to get over the cognitive dissonance of Americans electing a man who was endorsed by the KKK, who has just settled a fraud suit to the tune of $25 million, who apparently has deep ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin, who advocates sexual assault of women, and who is currently stocking his incoming Cabinet with white supremacists.
Don’t normalize this situation.
Don’t become accustomed to the idea that the voters of this country elected him, and that that’s somehow okay. Don’t assume he was (or is) all talk and no action. Don’t assume that his hangers-on aren’t going to help him put his words into action. They will.
Every morning, write this down:
THIS IS NOT NORMAL.
Highlight it. Underline it. Put it where you can see it.
Repeat it to yourself during your shower.
Say it between every sip of coffee.
Shout it at the news on the radio as you commute to and from work.
Write it on a Post-It note and stick it to your dashboard, your desk, your bathroom mirror, and your bedside table.
Write it on the check when you sign for your credit card payment at the restaurant where you have your lunch.
Put it on a button and pin it to your shirt.
Mutter it as a prayer before you go to bed.
Never allow yourself to get complacent. Never allow yourself to just go with the flow or go along to get along. This is not normal.
Don’t get over it.
Second, Don’t Look For a Middle Ground
Some folks will not like this part, but here it is:
Trying to find a middle ground with the people who didn’t vote for HRC is a form of getting over it.
Wade Lahoda on Facebook wrote this. It showed up on my feed a day or so ago.
Imagine you're in a room, and Fred stands up and says "Vote for me and I'll give everyone fifty bucks and I'll punch everyone named John right in the face."
You can probably assume most people will divide into one of three categories:
1) Those who want to see John punched in the face, so vote for Fred.
2) Those who don't particularly want to see guys named John punched in the face, but want $50 enough that they vote for Fred anyways.
3) And those who are like "Fuck no, I can't get behind someone who will punch people named John in the face!"
(I think we can easily rule out "people who don't want $50" as insignificant)
To the people who vote for Fred, the distinction between #1 and #2 is pretty big. The people who fall in catagory #2 probably don't even talk about guys named John at all - it isn't a thought or conversation at all. And when Fred gets in and goes around punching guys named John in the face, #2 will say "Yeah, but we don't hate John! We're not John-haters!" and really believe it.
But for guys named John, the difference between #1 and #2 is miniscule. They're all John-haters in John's mind, because even if #2 doesn't actively want to see John punched in the face, they didn't care enough to give anything up to stop it when Fred openly declared he'd punch John in the face.
I think the Johns are in the right here.
Not everyone who voted for Trump voted for him because he is a racist, but everyone who voted for Trump clearly wasn't turned off enough by his racist speech, platform, and supporters to *not* vote for him.
So if you get over it, or if you allow this to become normal, you are telling the guys named John that you’re okay with us being punched in the face. If you call for consensus, you’re telling the guys named John that we should just be nicer to the abusers and the bullies and maybe they’ll stop being so bad.
And you know what? The DNC has been telling us this for years, while the queers and the brown and the poor have been told to sit in the back of the bus and wait, while the Democratic party does strategic, incremental outreach instead of actually attacking the problems head-on and getting something done. You’ve been telling us to wait and eventually things will get better. In essence, you’ve been telling us to get over it and make nice with our abusers.
To which I say: Screw. That. Noise.
I used to think that it was important to reach out, to get consensus, to understand the people who voted for him. That it was necessary to get them on our side so that they’ll vote for sane people who know what they’re doing. I don’t believe that anymore.
More recently, I pointed out that you can’t negotiate with people who refuse to negotiate, and that the rural right-wing voter is largely behaving like a toddler who isn’t getting their way. The only thing you can do with a toddler is take away their toys and tell them how life really is. For example: the rural right-wing voter needs to realize that no magic wand is going to bring back their manufacturing jobs. They will have to move into the 21st century, like it or not. And many of them resist that like anything. They want to keep their cultural beliefs but just be rich like the guy they voted for. So it’s our job to educate them and make it clear that a) they will not get what they want and b) we have a better way for them anyway, if they’ll just work with us and grow up.
It didn’t take me long to move beyond that, too. In fact, I moved away from that even as I was finishing the diary. I’m fed up. They are never going to work with us. They have no interest in doing so. We need to recognize that.
Here’s where I am now. I don’t care why they think they voted for him, or what excuses they’re planning to hand me. The fact is that they elected a person who admitted that he sexually assaults women and children, who cheats his vendors out of their rightful pay, who calls for Mexicans to be deported and Muslims to be registered in a national registry, and who has a VP who thinks that you can and should electrocute the gay out of GLBT people.
No. Sorry. There’s got to be a line somewhere, and this is where I’m drawing it. They forfeited any right to my compassion, my understanding, my empathy or my outstretched hand when they bought that internet package with their vote. They didn’t just get HBO when they voted. They got Cinemax, too. (For an explanation of this metaphor, see John Scalzi’s The Cinemax Theory of Racism.)
Third, Don’t Normalize the People Who Created This Situation
In case it wasn’t blindingly obvious, yes, I am furious with people who voted for him. I don't believe them when they say that they're not racist. He's an obvious racist (and sexist, and xenophobe), and they still overlooked that and voted for him.
But I’m also angry with the people who are calling for consensus (which is a form of saying “get over it,”) or saying that he won’t be that bad for us, or that he’s all talk and no action. I’m angry at the people who are calling for us to “understand them.”
Calling for us to understand them is a form of normalizing them.
We already understand them. In the last week, I’ve read articles and seen comments that give all the following reasons for the upset we witnessed twelve days ago:
I’m angry with the people who voted for him. But the people who aren't angry at the ones who voted for him, and people who keep calling for consensus, are the ones that make me nervous. They're the ones who are going to be the good Germans and bend over backwards and do their best not to rock the boat and allow him to turn this country into 1933 Germany.
Don’t get over it.
Don’t let this become normal.
Calling for consensus and finding a middle ground with the people who voted for him is part of getting over it and letting it become normal.
It's time to stop reaching out to people who can't be reached anyway. It's time to ignore what they want, because what they want is antithetical to who we are, and what they want is for us to capitulate, and not just agree with them, but enthusiastically and wholeheartedly agree with them. What they want is for us to become them.
That's not going to happen. There is no middle ground. There’s no place we can go, while still retaining our integrity and values as progressives, that will be enough for them to work with us on anything.
But the thing is, we outnumber them (witness the popular vote numbers, if you don’t believe me). When someone tells you to get over it, remember: they are in the minority. Those of us who actually give a damn about the world are in the majority. What we need to do is stop trying to reach out to the ones who don't care about the world, and focus on those of us who do.
But if people keep saying “let’s work towards consensus,” they’re saying that this is normal.
Don’t let this become normal. People’s lives depend on it.
And stop telling us to get over it.
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EDIT: Waking up to being on the Rec List was a big boost, folks. Thanks for that. I’m going to be at work today but I’ll check in when and as I can.