Perhaps one of the good things to come out of the nation being abused as a whole, the rights of its citizens run over roughshod by a cabal with no apparent ethical boundaries, is that more and more people are driven to the point of saying "Enough!" This is a point not easily reached, for speaking out in a climate of false patriotism has branded any contrarians as "unamerican", "snowflakes", or a litany of other labels of condescension and condemnation. And when the groupthink has been supporting the position of power, the position of persistent abuse, both personal and abuse of privilege and position, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to speak out against it.
The undercurrent (which is fast bubbling up to an overcurrent) that can be heard in mumbles and grumbles, or outright protestations, is that tired refrain of inverse victimization, that the victimizers are now being persecuted for having done nothing wrong. I hear men in conversation looking around furtively saying, "You can't be too careful in these times of the #MeToo movement." This is significant. Maybe, just maybe, it's a signal that momentum is shifting to the point that it's no longer fashionable or safe to be a misogynist in public.
This reminds me of my time as a civil rights agitator in the South in the late 80's and 90's, when "affirmative action", and then "diversity" started to shift from being descriptive terms to a pejorative bogeyman and dog whistle for the white and privileged. It's notable that "Equal Employment Opportunity" didn't fall into the same category, perhaps because the syllable count was too high, but maybe because openly admitting that striving against equality and opportunity was a bridge too far.
But an interesting side effect of the #MeToo movement was recently revived with the rise and eventual election of a figurehead that emboldened the dormant discriminators who have been stewing behind the tattered banner of "political correctness" persecution: the open resentment that they were being unjustly persecuted for holding and expressing what they believed to be a perfectly valid position, that they were entitled to their bad behavior. Their mythical "just" world was one in which males, mostly WASP males, had the God-given right to rule the home, the workplace, and the nation, as an extension of the wrathful hand of God if necessary to keep those respective worlds in order. And denying them that birthright was just wrong.
I see the same pattern emerging of "oh, I can't say that anymore" that too often is said in the safe company of compatriots, as a shibboleth to find other subversives who still believe that beating down wives and brown people is a right that's being oppressed. It's a pivotal moment, where we have to seize those opportunities to affirm that "No, you can't say that anymore. Not because you ever should have just because you could, but rather because it wasn't right then, and isn't right now." Even if half of our leaders stay cowardly silent, we must keep the momentum going in public, letting them know that decency still lives, that the purge of abusers will continue.
Their resentment is holding on to a false justice. But it's not a wonder, as those fires have been stoked by propagandists especially fervently over the last decade and most violently over the last year. "You can't say Christmas anymore" was never really about Christmas (or true); it was about getting the basest of the base to feel solidarity with a demagogue, to feel that their rights were being suppressed and their lives oppressed by those who would strive for a more egalitarian society. And then, by showing by example that with enough feckless and flaccid complacency on the part of our "leaders", that one could again publicly be a bigot, a bully, a monster, and not only get away with it, but be rewarded.
Guess what, fellas? You're not being persecuted, you're being prosecuted. Southern senatorial candidate holdouts notwithstanding, it's no longer socially acceptable to abuse women and children. If you conduct yourself and treat others with dignity and respect, you have nothing to fear. This is not a witch-hunt, it's a manhunt. And if you aren't the man who did wrong, you have nothing to worry about. And if you are one of the victimizers, we don't care if you resent it or not, your time of safe quarter has passed. We, those who stand for real justice, those who have been abused for too long without the power to stop it, have said "Enough!" Straighten up and fly right, or reap what you sow. Just be "man" enough to admit that you are wrong and face the consequences.
God willing, this isn't just a phase, it's the new normal.