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The first step toward an honest appraisal of American politics is acknowledging a large percentage of white people will never forgive Democrats for the Civil Rights Act but also Roe, Obergefell, and any number of other things they perceive as threats to white male supremacy.
In a very real sense, we are fighting the same ideological battles that have always dominated American politics. Rural vs. urban. Affluent white men versus everyone else.
The Civil War never ended, really, and Reconstruction never should have. We just pretend otherwise.
The Civil War never ended, really, and Reconstruction never should have. We just pretend otherwise.
The battle lines are still there. The battle flags are still flown. Shots are still fired.
The reason we collectively ignore it, subsuming it into the rest of our politics with euphemisms, is to avoid upsetting white people of all things, even though we are hardly the ones suffering most from this arrangement.
White people collectively wish to avoid conflict with each other, no matter what else, to avoid the trauma that would cause them, and most of all, to avoid or at least postpone the prospect of real and lasting change and equality, which so many of them find frightening.
Everyone knows this about them, too. White fragility is so obvious. And to some extent, no one wants to set them off either because white people become irrational and violent whenever their supremacy is challenged.
Our politics and our messaging are white-centered because -- well, white people center themselves in everything -- and to try and avoid this conflict even though it bubbles up in literally every aspect of our culture and our politics, euphemisms and dog whistles be damned.
Progress in this country, and even whether we have democracy or not, is held hostage by how many white people are willing to accept it.
I'm white and this is the most obvious thing in the world to me.
I'm white and this is the most obvious thing in the world to me.
What also seems obvious to me is that, in trying to avoid conflict, we have slowly ceded ground to the Neo-Confederates and their ideological allies. We steadfastly reject racism and other forms of bigotry -- in principle -- while often allowing them to flourish in fact.
I'm NOT saying, "Let's start the civil war again!"
We won't be the ones to start it. Are you kidding me? And to be honest, it's already here, all around us, as a cold war.
I'm saying this defeatist, conciliatory, non-confrontational posture is getting us nowhere.
We won't be the ones to start it. Are you kidding me? And to be honest, it's already here, all around us, as a cold war.
I'm saying this defeatist, conciliatory, non-confrontational posture is getting us nowhere.
Some people have lately realized there is no reaching people inside the Republican reality bubble.
For the most part, this is true and we shouldn't bother catering our messaging and our politics to them.
The only reason we do that is white people want to pretend it isn't true.
For the most part, this is true and we shouldn't bother catering our messaging and our politics to them.
The only reason we do that is white people want to pretend it isn't true.
Bipartisanship of the centrist "move to the middle" variety is primarily a form of white appeasement, a delaying action intended to promote white comfort and prevent a cold war from turning hot again, but everyone knows where appeasement gets us with would-be authoritarians.
I'm not saying you have to run to the furthest left possible. I'm not a socialist. I could give a fuck about Marxism.
I'm saying we have allowed white supremacists to define what is and is not possible in our politics for so long people assume that's just how it has to be.
I'm saying we have allowed white supremacists to define what is and is not possible in our politics for so long people assume that's just how it has to be.
Every time we have compromised, the Neo-Confederates have taken that inch and turned it into a mile because they know we would rather not fight about it, and we have been on the brink of an authoritarian or fascist takeover for the past four years because of it.
I don't believe this little speech of mine is going to change anything either. People in power, especially the older white people, are very set in their ways.
But if you want an honest appraisal of American politics, you have to recognize the Confederacy, an inherently racist, authoritarian institution, never really went away. It was welcomed back into our politics with open arms and allowed to stay, unchallenged, largely out of fear.
We call it the GOP today in one of history's little ironies. It's acquired some new features over the years thanks to Nazism, anti-communism, evangelicalism, etc., but our politics will continue to be mediocre tipping toward white male supremacy until it is purged or defeated.