On the general question of policy proposals that would help or not help Trump supporters, the biggest divide we’ve seen is Rural vs Urban. So therefore if you had policies that would lower the help to rural areas and increase help in urban areas, that would be one way to do that. Maybe less help for farmers on the next farm bill?
But anyway, I don’t think that’s a good way to set policy. And no democratic legislator has proposed doing so, and rightly so.
I revised that very line from my original post, it was worth expressing better, but even in my original I can’t see how you could read my post honestly and believe I’m advocating silence or passivity toward the person or their actions.
I’m not trying to read you unfairly, sorry if it seems that way. But if you aren’t going to denounce or condemn or rebut their racism (which I see as forms described as ‘shaming’), then what’s the alternative to remaining silent?
This is a subject I have great struggle with in my family life. On a few levels, not just the Trumpian problem. What do I do with my parents, who have mistaken being staunchly conservative and Christian (abortion abortion abortion) with supporting someone who is so blatantly the antithesis of their values that I simply don’t know how to communicate with them anymore. I know they are not racists. I know them. I know their history. I know their hearts. And yet, they campaigned for and support this vile human being.
So what should I do? What I end up doing is, well…not talking to them almost at all. And that is the true victory of the gang of hate that now runs this country. They know people like me aren’t like those who would violently revolt. They simply know how to employ a wedge.
Which, as it happens, is a Biblical principle:
Matthew 10:35-37
35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
36 And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.
37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
So I am left with might be eight years of not having decent conversations with my mother, which totally sucks.
This affects other members of my family in other ways. She won’t talk to her sisters or brother. My son has little respect for her, but hides that side of his feelings and focuses on the things he likes about her.
As for racism with his friends, which I’ve seen cropping up over the last year as his friends text and meme and whatnot, I’ve had to institute blocking policies on some of his social media.
But again, what is a good person supposed to do? How does shunning help? How does it help some stupid/ignorant kid he’s friends with to remove a decent influence like I hope my son is? But then, OTOH, my duty is to him, to keep him from being dragged down or sullied.
Once again, the point is division. And at that, they are winning.
-xtien
On the narrow issue of whether we should be tolerant of racism specifically, I again refer people to the paradox of tolerance:
I realize that the larger question of deprogramming members of the Trump cult is broader than that but on the issue of racism and intolerance, we have to be clear that certain points of view can not be tolerated in a civil society
Somehow I suspect the United States National Guard is not 382 years old. Just call it a hunch.
They recognize 1636 as the inception of the National Guard. I know it’s kind of silly, but that’s the official date.
What happened in 1636? A couple of drunk pilgrims decided to guard the hooch?
I think shunning is so more normal people do not think behavior is acceptable in public. This is the process how Americans stopped using the N word, and I guess Asian American supplants oriental. Yes, it’s political correctness I guess.
I do not know what to do about the more … hardcore. Part of me is angry and just wants to say “fuck it”. I think you have to chip away enough of the little-bit racist and pretty-racists so the super-racists shut up and go back into hiding.
Oof. Later blankets were enlisted, I guess.
-xtien
:) 345
Wow, even boomers don’t go back that far. :)
The National Guard thing is silly. It’s like saying the US Postal Service goes back to 1660 because hey, the Brits had a colonial postal service before there was a US!
Not even the branches of the military are above padding the old resume …
Cue the obligatory “I see stupid people” meme.
Mean, nasty comedians. Such a poor wittle snowflake.
To paraphrase the statement made during the Google hearing, if the don’t want people to make fun of your stupid shit, stop doing stupid shit.
This is biased against idiots.
It’s almost like he just doesn’t understand the First Amendment… oh, never mind.
