Hate Trumps everything?
Right wing press Controlling media
The amount of air time and focus given to the far right exceeds the rest of the coverage of other views two to one. When sensational voyeuristic press give more voice to one mad man, one without even a clear idea of what he stands for you deprive those with valid and important things to say.
Yet when ever there was a protest, the protesters where drenched in scorn and vilified. Over and over again the feelings and lives of those enduring were mocked and devalued. Protest it's self was seen as pathetic or naive. The media twisted and distorted the truth to make money and they have blood on their hands.
Lack of ability to debate.
I have heard them blaming "the left" for their inability to debate but the truth is complex issues don't make good sound bites. The right railroad, attack and scream "evil" at people for the colour of their skin, where they were born, or who they love. What is the point of trying to have a reasoned conversation with people so far down their particular hate-hole they can't hear you? This means that the left have been lazy because they have only needed to confirm already held beliefs not expand or educate. That doesn't mean they are guilty of not trying.
Being "racist" is not just about burning crosses or going to KKK meetings. It is the fear and untrusting of those who look different than you. If your "black" friend has to speak, eat and dress like you to be your friend then you are probably racist. It is not believing what someone says because they "don't look trust worthy". It's minimising racist attacks, police brutality while condemning protests. It's profiling people. It's refusing to date someone of an ethnicity. Or only dating one ethnicity. It's fearing "immigrants taking over your country" when you are a descendant of immigrants who took over a country. Yet when left wing voices try and say this the idea that you could be racist is met with rage and denial. Much of the mainstream media is unwaveringly racist. Much in the same way as women raised to believe that violence and sexual harassment is normal male behaviour, that the conflicting idea brings such painful cognitive dissonance they do not believe it could be true. So when a women says "well all men are like that." She means all the men I have ever known treat me that way".
It is more comfortable as a victims of abuse to blame ourselves. We then have some control over it. If the left naval gaze and hand wring about the choices we could have made we will lose our forward momentum.
Church state
To someone from one of the large educated coastal cities church lead rural communities looks as backwards as an Amish one did 20 years ago. Churches are big business. They control communities and they police "appropriate" behaviour. If you don't fit in (aka be straight, fall into gender roles, and don't ask too many questions) you tend to leave. and live in cities. Mostly on the coasts. This means that the way of life under "attack" in middle America, is indeed under attack. As it should be. White male 20th century thinking and privilege is increasingly under threat from modern ideas. Like women's rights over their own body. Like the idea that perpetrators are responsible for rape and violence. That gender is not about genitals. That sexual attraction is healthy and normal between any combination of genders.
The shame, blame and control some churches have over communities leads to seriously anti Christian methods and messages. I am not anti Christian by a long chalk, some of them are lovely people. Far too often churches use faith as a stick to beat people who are different with.
It is worth remembering Jesus was a middle eastern Jew who turned the other cheek and healed and helped anyone in need.
Money in politics (lobbying)
If the people who are suppose to be voicing your needs and opinions are in the employment of a business to instead pursue businesses needs and desires you no longer have a voice. The lobbyist corruption in money bribes, cushy jobs and stocks should be illegal. Whether it is blocking, passing or changing laws for their benefit this toxic industry cares about one thing. Profit. From Big Aggro to weapons manufacturers, to Fossil fuel lobbyists: they do not care about people. They do not care about facts. Or science. They only care about money.
This can not be the driving force of government.
Fear of "not looking nice".
Somewhere along the line lefties were told, "but you are sooo shrill. So mean! Who want to hear about x from someone who looks that that? " Somewhere along the line we were feed the line that we "needed" to be nicer.
Now I'm a big fan of kindness. Real kindness. The honest kind but here's the thing. That is not always pretty and it sure isn't always "nice".
The fear of "looking nasty" or mean or simply "not nice" means we hold our tongue. Well if you can't say something nice?
If you can't say something nice, how about we say something honest?
We are scared of looking like a villain and twist ourselves into knots. I suppose because most of us "lefties" have been the victim at some point. This leads to a sort of "nice-ness" paralysis.
White 20th century privilege.
It is the white privilege to know you are in the "right" and in the majority. That your world view is "normal" and that your "values" are the basic 'Merican standard. That there was a "golden-age" where everyone had a good job and food on the table and everyone was kinder and Christian. Right?
This thinking is as dangerous as it is wrong. Even if your family came over on the Mayflower odds are you were "escaping" Britain or Europe because of your "extremist views". They took land that belong to other people, and re-wrote history. They had slaves, treated women as property and took what they wanted as their "god given right".
The West wasn't "won". It was conquered, butchered, stole and gained through committing genocide and people still make movies out of these "good ol' days".
Big business, rail-road men build their fortunes on the backs of the Chinese poor, their broken bodies often left in shallow graves where they dropped.
Each time something awful and terrible happened the books wrote it as a glowing victory for the rich white men that achieved it.
There was no golden age.
THERE WAS NO GOLDEN AGE.
All that has been happening for the last century is that the shiny gloss has been chipped and broken away by the people fighting underneath it.
Cultural Amnesia of how social change happens.
It is a mistake to think that because you are LGBTQ+ you can't be racist, sexist, or anti-choice (pro-life is a lie I will not even bother to repeat).
This is how Trump won.
All of his awful ideology is terrible BUT the people voting cherry picked their "cause".
You can hate everything someone is and still think that being gay is against God (I don't understand this thinking but it happens). So that is the issue they vote on.
In this way he was able to appeal to a huge amount of people.
It is also fair to say that the left really needs to get it's shit together and address it's issues. That being non-white doesn't make you any less homophobic, sexist or pro-choice. Or being female or trans makes you more aware of cultural and social issues of ethnic minorities or those of the disabled. We need to come together.
Nobody ever gave a human a right. They have all been fought for in blood, and pain. In the courthouse and in the street. In peaceful protest and it riot.
Riots have a deep and important history. From Julius Caesar's funeral to the Boston Bread Riots (where the elite ignored the hungry poor) to the Rebecca riots or the Newport rising and are not always seen as an evil. They pushed and shoved change. They drove parliamentary and government debate. They were the only way that the masses had a voice until they were able little by little, to vote.
It makes sense then that the way they maintain that control is to make people believe their vote is worthless. That marches, speeches, strikes and civil cases mean nothing, and don't work. Historically they are the only thing that ever has.
Fear of reprisals
It is easy to ask people to be brave. It hard to do it knowing the hate, threats and physical danger it might put you in. The truth is that as any woman on the internet knows that the tidal wave of intellectual sewage that can be unleashed at any moment is almost without end. That being different, be it gay, trans, disabled, female or not white is taken as a threat and that violence is the first last and only response.
The thing is that we have to stand together. Not only because we are stronger that way but because it is easy to pick off lone targets. There is safety in numbers. There is weight. A gravitational pull. It can be tempting to stay in the little box they put you in, thinking someone else's rights are a luxury, a step up from where you are. Yet the boxes divide us, and they still confine us however much "better" some of us appear to have it. I will never know what it is like to be Muslim, or Hispanic, or black. To be confined by the box that is the colour of my skin. Yet I can listen. I will support. I will offer a hand, a shoulder and an open heart.
I will be brave.
