Any Suggestion of Support for Racism, Fascism, or Trump Is Offensive

Republicans are the oppressors, they’re not the victims

Sometimes you try to tell people something and they adamantly refuse to listen. They get so arrogant and entitled that they twist up everything you say and spit a nonsensical version back to you in contempt.

This can happen for something as simple as teaching a child to shoot a basketball. It’s a basic example, but it’s worth walking through to convey the concept. To get power when shooting a basketball, you have to get your elbow under the ball. Kids tend to start out with their elbows splayed out like wings. They look like they’re setting a volleyball.

I get it, I get it. Kids lack the strength to shoot properly. They’re learning. But as a coach, your job is to remind your players to be mindful of proper technique. The problem is, when the kids make a shot doing it the wrong way, they start to think that they’re doing it right.

Once they make that shot, they steadfastly refuse to listen to you.

Yeah, when you shoot the ball wrong, sometimes it still goes in. But your technique is still flawed, and there will be consequences for those flaws. You’ll be an anchor that drags down the whole team.

Modern Republicans are like juveniles who never developed mature cognitive function. They’re still convinced their shooting technique is perfect because they make one shot in a million.

It’s infuriating to deal with false positive reinforcement when we argue with Trump supporters. It’s like they stare at a broken clock and cheer in defiance the two times a day when it shows the correct time. The whole rest of the day, they stare at the wall glassy eyed refusing to recognize that the clock clearly doesn’t work.

This defiant insistence on willful ignorance makes them highly susceptible to control and manipulation. Recently they’ve become violent, and it’s not going to get better until we demand they stop.

We’re in a dire situation

When people decide they’re right you just can’t get through to them. They go charging through life making preventable mistakes that everyone else has to clean up after.

But why Trump supporters think the way they do isn’t important right now. We shouldn’t even be discussing their right to their own personal delusion.

Right now, the important thing to recognize is that the American political right has shown a troubling uptick in their willingness to descend into violence and lawlessness.

Everybody has to be clear that our current situation is not politics as usual. This is not a case where the two sides have to work together to figure out a compromise.

The modern republican party has embraced fascism. This isn’t baseless name calling. They’ve been engaging in violence all across our nation. Here are some examples:

Trump supporters have been attacking teachers and school board members based on an absurd interpretation of CRT.

Trump supporters tried to overthrow the government on January 6th.

White supremacists who are sympathetic to the Republican party have infiltrated police forces.

It seems like every day another Republican makes a call for violence against a political opponent.

If you look at history, it’s always lawless, fanatics on the right of the political spectrum who maim, torture, and murder people.

All of these things are facts. Yet the folks on the right will still try to claim that BOTH sides of the political spectrum are violent. That’s a lie. There’s no evidence for it. They’ll try to cite riots and conveniently forget the fact that violence in riots is often started by white supremacist police officers who infiltrate peaceful protests for the PURPOSE of making them violent.

The right is violent. The left is not. Case closed.

I get attacked by moderates too

I get a fair share of hate mail from conservatives. My family has been threatened by them. Yet people who have never had to endure any kind of attacks often have the nerve to tell me I have to “tone down” my rhetoric.

Recently, I was accused in a comment of “using the language of the oppressors,” which is an absolutely absurd thing to say. This kind of talk represents the kind of Hillary Clinton Neoliberalism that got Trump elected in the first place.

Moderates like to say that we shouldn’t accuse Republicans of being fascists because it lacks “dignity.” They say it brings us down to their level because they misuse hysterical language and we have to be better than that.

The thing is, when I say a Republican has engaged in terrorist activities, it’s because they’re on television waving Confederate flags and breaking windows on the Capitol building! When Republicans accuse Democrats of treason it’s because Democrats are trying to teach the real history of the US in classrooms, or provide affordable daycare for parents.

“Terrorist” isn’t a word that only Republicans get to use! They use it wrong on purpose to reduce its power so they’re free to behave like terrorists and discredit the people that label them as such.

The fact that hysterical Republicans falsely accuse Democrats of treason doesn’t mean that Democrats should not accuse Republicans of treason WHEN THEY ACTUALLY COMMIT AN ACT OF TREASON!

Seriously, why do I even have to argue this? This should be obvious. We can’t sit around and do nothing and continue to endure the insane level of violence that’s being instigated by politicians to enrage an already delusional base of voters.

It has to stop. I shouldn’t have to worry about my wife, who is a teacher, going to work and getting shot by some deranged anti-CRT white supremacist.

I DO worry about that!

We must stop the violence

Republicans keep breaking the rules and Democrats keep letting them get away with it. If you speak up about this, both Democrats AND Republicans come down on you and claim you’re the one making things worse.

What needs to happen is that Democrats have to readjust their thinking. We can work on bridging the gap between our worldviews when the Republicans begin to behave within the parameters of the law. Until then, we have just as much of a right as anyone to defend ourselves.

The fecklessness of moderate Democrats is just as responsible for the continuing Republican violence as the Republicans themselves. Moderates keep holding out hope that the Republicans will magically start to become reasonable.

That’s idiotic! When they break the law, ARREST THEM! Now their vote doesn’t matter because they’re FELONS!

This has been going on for decades and the Republicans are just becoming more entrenched. They’ve been given an inch and they’re taking the whole world.

Republicans will look at this article and hysterically call it a call to violence. It is not a call to violence. I want our legal authorities to exercise their power and hold violent Republicans accountable. Maybe we’re at a breaking point now that Steve Bannon has been indicted, but that has to be the beginning, it’s not the end.

In the meantime, I will not endure any criticism of the accurate labels I apply to violent and lawless members of the Republican party. If you’ve got enough energy to attack me, you should think about instead offering some criticism of Republicans who attack teachers, or who call for violence against the members of the Squad, or any other of a million deplorable and violent activities that conservatives engage in all the time.

How can you possibly justify being more offended by the language I choose to use than the actual violence being perpetuated in our communities by lawless conservatives?

When the violence has ended, we can try to understand each other. Right now the Republicans are punching us in the face and laughing about it. Have some situational awareness because we’re quickly running out of time to stop this nation’s descent into fascism.