when jennicet gutiérrez was in the white house attempting to “hold the president accountable,” instead of standing in solidarity, people booed, hissed and chanted “obama!” he paternalistically dismissed her. folks clapped. so no, i don’t believe the “hold them accountable” folks.

and because we accept lesser evil as the structure of our politics, we allow “we will hold them accountable // push them to the left” to always be for some future that will never arrive because there is always the more urgent evil happening “now” that must be attended to.

jennicet gutiérrez was told it wasn’t the right “time” to protest because folks were celebrating. she was told to wait for some moment in some future in which the her words would be “appropriate” but that moment would never arrive. and this is the evil of our political situation.

you can draw a direct line from what she was protesting to the current violence against undocumented people and trans folks, especially trans women of color. and folks will get more upset at those pointing out the contradictions than the structure of evil.

the concept of lesser evil is itself the practice of evil. and today, the acknowledgment of it is not about contending with and against the contradictions and harms but is a kind of shibboleth used to refuse to engage the contradictions and harms at all.

practice otherwise.