Although I applaud the author’s appeal for empathy for #cult45 I would like to posit this reasoned response: fuck those guys.
I haven’t read the article yet, just what you posted, but it sounds good, and unfortunately like something most of Qt3 will run you out of town for suggesting.
Coddle their racism and stupidity, it’s the only way.
No thanks. That’s what got us here.
Has anyone actually suggested that we punish Trump’s followers? What I see is policy proposals that would help them, not punish them. Medicare for all proposals don’t e.g. exclude working white men from the benefits.
Socially, yes. Shunning, shaming, insulting, etc of Trump followers has already been happening for years.
Have you met Armando? :)
I think they should be shamed and shunned, but not if they change their minds.
I completely agree there — if you’re not shaming racists, what you’re doing is tolerating racists.
Yet there are no politicians advocating policies that punish them; nor even policies that would adversely impact them. The article is framed as advice to policy makers on the left. It isn’t about dinner parties.
Clarify: is tolerating racists unacceptable? I mean, I think that’s what you’re saying, but I don’t want to assume.
Because I probably disagree.
Yes45
Yes, i see no reason to tolerate racists.
I mean, i don’t think you should necessarily engage in physical violence against them, but they should absolutely be shunned and shamed for their racism.
I want to be clear about what I’m not saying: I’m not putting the burden on any particular individual to tolerate any particular racist. There’s a place for shaming and shunning, and your response can and should vary from person to person, offense to offense, circumstance to circumstance.
But if anyone’s saying that anything less than always shaming and shunning all racists is wrong, then I disagree, strongly.
Tolerance is not endorsement or support, and may be a necessary compromise as you engage with, persuade, or discipline someone who you’re trying to correct and help. I’m not suggesting anyone tolerate racist actions or behavior. Call those out, stop those. And I’m not suggesting there’s no limit to the grace and patience and tolerance extended to the perpetrators.
Imagine disciplining your children—not just about racism, and I don’t mean children too young to know better that could be acting out of ignorance. Harmful or evil actions should be dealt with clearly, definitively, possibly severely. Punishment and discipline are in order. But consequences and discipline, while necessary, aren’t automatically going to change attitudes and feelings. Those can take time, and people don’t often articulate that they’re tolerating their children because that almost goes without saying, but that’s what happening.
That kind of tolerance is not only acceptable between parents and children. There’s a place for that with other family members, with friends, with coworkers, and maybe with strangers. Again, it’s not a demand or an expectation for everyone all the time, but there’s a place for it and I despair to see it being ruled out as if it’s part of the problem.
How would we do that? Hate related crimes are already punished (supposedly) heavier than normal crimes. Without being convicted of anything, how would you enforce actions toward racists that have not (yet?) committed any crimes? You’re tiptoeing around something akin to McCarthyism and I don’t condone that.
“Well Fred and Jen voted for Trump and I don’t want them getting any of my benefits. I just won’t stand for it!”
Meanwhile, Fred and Jen may be law-abiding taxpayers who have never committed any crimes, and we’re tiptoeing toward encircling them into camps and chambers. Let’s not become what we seek to destroy in the first place.
Place harsher penalties on hate crimes. Place penalties and enact methods to investigate anonymous racism with intention to bully. Outlaw more racist symbolism.
It is possible to change the minds of racists… That story about the black jazz pianist who basically destroyed the KKK in Maryland by befriending its members is a cool story.
Right, but without some physical way to know who is who, what other thing could you do besides change laws to make racism more penalized?
This is a good post, and echos what the writer in the piece is saying.
Trust me, my impulse is to catapult MAGAs to Venus shouting enjoy the CO2 motherfuckers. But the writer in this piece lays out why these people will not change. Facts, logic, reasoning, even shaming or shunning only serve to further entrench them.
As we know, trump isn’t a cause but a symptom. What are Republican candidates going to look like beyond 2020? They’ve all learned that lies, racism and misogyny and hell even criminal behavior is not only acceptable to their voters but desirable. In a bizarre twist of fate, we lucked out that trump is also incompetent; but that probably won’t be the case when the next one comes along - and if past is prologue, another one will.
The way forward is a long, arduous process, and as the piece admits, fundamentally unfair. I don’t know if what the writer advocates is the only way, but I suspect he’s probably right. (It’s also possible there is no solution.)
He’s saying the exact opposite of that. He’s saying no democratic lawmaker has proposed any policy punishing Trump’s followers.
It’s been long enough I don’t want to go back and keep tweaking my original post with edits as people might be replying to it, but I probably should’ve said something like “Tolerance of a person is not endorsement or support of their actions” or something more nuanced like that.
Qui tacet cosentire videtur. I mean, it’s old enough wisdom that it’s in Latin.
We’re living a nightmare now in part because the Establishment decided to tolerate Trump’s open racism. Their tolerance encouraged other closet racists to act on their beliefs. It compounds from there. There are some taboos society ought to consistently enforce socially, and the taboo against racism is one of them.