Choose a Side

If the Right Wins, There Will Be Blood in the Streets

They are out of other options

If marginalized groups won’t stand down, the Right will have two choices: surrender their vision for the country, or respond to their opponents with force.

It’s ugly to say, but the time for silence in the name of civility has passed.

A society is like an operating system, and there comes a point when the new version is incompatible with the old one.

We’re there.

America 1.0

The men who birthed the nation and wrote its founding documents were the 18th century’s best of the best — the intelligent, educated, sophisticated elite.

By 21st-century standards, in many ways, they were ignorant savages.

They created a country solely of, by, and for wealthy white Christian men: a woman was merely an appendage of her husband or father; the indigenous population was a nuisance to eradicate; Black people were servants and farm implements.

Since then, rights have been expanded by law, if not always in fact, to non-whites and women. Some are gradually being extended to the LGBTQ+ community. The remaining wealthy white Christian men still hold most of the power, but no longer all of it. Call it a series of updates to America 1.246.

However, now we’re at the point when a quantum leap has to be made or rejected. The status quo is untenable. One side of our politics wants to move forward, the other backward.

A newer version of your country is available. Do you wish to install it?

Many white conservatives are lashing out at Black Lives Matter protests, claiming liberal obsession with race is increasing racial tensions. “Things are getting better. Why do Black people seem angrier than ever?”

As a white person, I can’t definitively answer that question. But as far as I can tell, they aren’t actually angrier. Those protests felt like progress of a sort: the people marching finally believed in the American dream enough to complain about being shut out of it.

Now across our society, changing attitudes and demographic shifts are weakening the white Christian patriarchy. Women are trying to break through the walls our culture places around them. The idea of the Supreme Court allowing gay marriage was unthinkable a decade ago. Racial, gender and religious minorities have made gains. We’re evolving toward a more egalitarian, diverse, multi-racial, multi-faith America 2.0.

Some people prefer the previous version

The old guard not only hates the thought of moving forward, they want to “take their country back” and “Make America Great Again.”

Of course, they insist they aren’t racist, sexist, homophobic, or religiously biased. They just say change has gone too far. But America has been all those things since its founding, and the change hasn’t gone far enough to eliminate them. So now we have a conflict — people striving for equality versus those with more power trying to claw back what they imagine they’ve lost.

Returning to the computer metaphor, our current national operating system has become unstable and keeps crashing. Society is ripping itself apart, and there are only two options to stabilize it.

One is going forward to America 2.0, where people of all races, religions, and genders have at least some expectation of justice. Yes, it’s naive to think a new country won’t have most of the same bugs as the old one. The system won’t be fair, money will buy influence, tribes will battle tribes. But it will be fairer. More people will feel as if they have a chance.

The other option is MAGA, going back to an earlier version of America when Christianity reigned supreme, women knew their place, and the LGBTQ+ dared not show their true faces. Protests were limited to what the majority felt comfortable with, which experience has taught us isn’t much.

But if we do go back, what happens to the new energy surrounding marginalized groups?

There are only two choices

We know the right doesn’t deal well with protests, at least not against them. These are the people who thought one football player kneeling during the national anthem was an outrage, so it’s no surprise they lost their minds over Black Lives Matter. But no Republican-led government would listen to those protests and crack down on police misconduct.

Being anti-gay is second only to anti-abortion as the central moral tenet among conservatives. If they “take their country back,” LGBTQ+ rights will not be extended further and more likely curtailed.

So what are the Right’s options if BLM won’t get off the streets or gays won’t stay in the closet? The same ones majorities always use and have used in our own history: the legal system, law enforcement, and violence.

To have an orderly society, the opposition has to be crushed. It’s ugly to say, but the time for silence in the name of civility has passed.

Some of you think this is alarmist. OK, make a list of the other possibilities. It won’t take long. The people who’ve been oppressed since our nation’s founding have gotten a taste of equality, and that doesn’t shut people up. It encourages them to push forward, and they’ll be very reluctant to go back. The genie is out of the bottle, as it were.

Conservatives can only realize their agenda through draconian laws and physical violence.

They’ll disagree. Most of them won’t even believe it. But if marginalized groups won’t stand down, the right will have two choices: surrender their vision for the country, or respond to their opponents with force.

• In red states, legal changes to suppress dissent and enable retaliation against protesters are already happening.
• Federal officers in unmarked vehicles “disappeared” protesters in Portland.
• As right-wing domestic terrorism and hate crimes increase, 30% of Republicans believe “things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” Among Trump supporters, that number is even higher.
• A mob attacked the Capitol on January 6th.
• Heather Heyer was killed by a car while protesting at a “Unite the Right” rally. Some Republican-controlled states are passing laws to reduce penalties for similar actions.
• Convicted or not, it’s still true Kyle Rittenhouse brought a gun to a riot and shot three people.

Most worryingly, Republican politicians — who used to condemn these sorts of violent acts — are now largely silent, or even approving. We saw what happened when Trump controlled federal law enforcement. What if the GOP regains Congress, or especially the White House?

Elections aren’t about candidates

No matter what it says on your ballot in November, it won’t be about individual politicians, party platforms, or government spending. The actual choice we have to make is this: on the one hand, we can move forward toward a still-flawed but more equitable society.

On the other, we authorize angry and frightened conservatives to put the genie back in the bottle. By whatever means necessary.