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This is true, and I'll add to it one point I think is quite important.
Because one side supports a corrupt fascist bully, and refuses to engage with reality on pretty much any level, it's good that we are so divided.
It's *very* good.
To unify with that would be far worse. https://twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/status/1303940564925251584
Because one side supports a corrupt fascist bully, and refuses to engage with reality on pretty much any level, it's good that we are so divided.
It's *very* good.
To unify with that would be far worse. https://twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/status/1303940564925251584
I've read a lot of takes about how divided we are as a nation. I've learned a lot of things from it—all of them to do with people who believe as I do, none of them to do with people who cheered and supported and elected a corrupt fascist bully running on white supremacy policies.
I’ve learned that I and people who feel as I do have scolded far too much; I've learned that resentment at this scolding has fueled this political seismic activity, has created and exacerbated these fault lines, and prised apart the tectonic plates of our political body.
I learned that I am in a bubble. I learned it is part of my job to get out of that bubble. It’s a very important task, I’m told.
I’ve heard there are two sides to everything. I’ve heard it’s very important to consider and respect and understand and publish both sides, and this is part of getting out of my bubble.
I’ve been given to understand that the tone of opposition’s rhetoric has become much too sharp and hectoring. I am now tasked with finding a tone much more conducive to comity, and that is part of getting out of my bubble.
Most of all, I’ve read a lot about how divided we are as a nation—the most divided we’ve been in a hundred years. I’ve learned it is my job now to reach out and mend this divide, and this is part of getting out of my bubble.
OK.
But there are things these pieces didn't teach.
OK.
But there are things these pieces didn't teach.
I haven’t heard anything about how all the people who Donald Trump and his party have threatened and attacked and killed, and continue to threaten and attack and kill, are going to stop being threatened or attacked or killed, if I do any of that.
For example.
For example.
I haven’t heard anything about how, if I choose to move on, those who continue to live under the constant dread of promised menace and violence and bigotry are going to be able to move on, too.
For example.
For example.
"Getting out of the bubble" doesn’t seem to be an option for them. Compliance with new proposed laws, or old ones that are enforced only for them, that appears to be more the order of the day for them.
For example.
For example.
I've certainly never read anything about how living your life afraid—of cities, of immigrants, of Muslims, of anything except the things that are actually killing you (which you embrace, b/c you refuse to listen to any experts on any subject)—is living in a bubble.
I haven’t heard how my reaching out to mend the divide is going to protect millions of people— including those who voted for Donald Trump and his Republican Congress—who rely on access to health insurance and affordable health care.
I haven’t heard anything about how all these people are going to be protected from the effects of the intended Republican strip-mining of load-bearing girders of our social infrastructure, upon which people, including Republicans, rely to sustain their lives.
I haven’t heard anything about how any of us expect our grandchildren to live on a planet that is swiftly tilting toward inhospitablity.
This is apparently not activity that heals us as a nation. This apparently doesn't get us out of our bubbles.
This is apparently not activity that heals us as a nation. This apparently doesn't get us out of our bubbles.
All the healing and mending and understanding, it seems, now needs to be performed by the marginalized and threatened, on behalf of those powerful and comfortable people, their power newly re-entrenched, who continue to threaten them.
I can’t help but wonder why that should be.
I can’t help but wonder why that should be.
Allow me to suggest that, when there is a great divide between people who prefer order, and people who prefer justice, this is an indication: that the undergirding system over which these people contend is deeply, fundamentally abusive and unjust.
Allow me to suggest that, the greater the divide between those who prefer order and those who prefer justice, the more abusive and unjust the existing order of that system is likely to be.
Allow me to suggest that, in cases like this, an increasing divisiveness is not actually the problem, in the same way a symptom is not the disease.
Allow me to suggest this:
Decisiveness may be the only indication complacent people can perceive: that the order they support is unjust, and that their support of it makes further abuse not only likely, but inevitable—that their support of an abusive order is itself abuse.
Decisiveness may be the only indication complacent people can perceive: that the order they support is unjust, and that their support of it makes further abuse not only likely, but inevitable—that their support of an abusive order is itself abuse.
It may well be the divide is the only thing protecting—however partially, however imperfectly—an unjust system from those people the system is designed to unjustly abuse.
It may be the divide is the only thing keeping those people separated from those others, not complacent, very intentional, who intend to deliberately advantage themselves, using the inherent injustices preserved within the order of their society for the abuse and harm of others.
It may be that unity, while a good thing, is not more important than justice.
It may be that before we decide if unity is appropriate, we must ask what it is we intend to unify around.
And it may well be the divide is actually a very, very, very good thing.
It may be that before we decide if unity is appropriate, we must ask what it is we intend to unify around.
And it may well be the divide is actually a very, very, very good thing.
This was a unified country, for example.
