Screw Your Call For Unity
Ever since the election we’ve been hearing calls for unity—from the victors, of course, but also from many Democrats and others who voted for Clinton.
They can go to hell.
These are the petulant whines of a child who wants everyone to play by his rules when he’s winning, but wants to scream and fall kicking to the floor when he’s losing.
Because that’s what Trump voters have been doing for the last eight years.
Obstructionism. Congressional gridlock. Racially motivated violence. Racist picketing. Misogynistic attempts to control women’s rights. These have been the modus operandi of Conservative America ever since we dared to elect a black man to the highest office in the land.
Trump himself spearheaded the chief racist campaign against Obama, challenging the legitimacy of the Presidency for years, and now he wants us all to goose-step in line with him?
That racist rapist Cheeto is going to face far more resistance from me than his Nazi friends gave Obama.
If there’s a problem with Democrats (other than the fact that they lose so goddamn always) it’s that they’re susceptible to appeals to higher ethics and reasoning. The call for unity and compassion is so damn enticing because we want to live in a peaceful nation where everyone gets along and tries to find common ground.
Here’s what I’ve come to realize: the other side has absolutely no interest in that same ideal.
They are smiling at you and offering an open hand while they clutch a knife behind their back. And here’s the goddamn kicker: that knife isn’t for you.
It’s for Black people. It’s for Hispanic people. It’s for the LGBT community. It’s for the disabled.
I would say that it’s for women, except more than half of white women voters are also holding knives, so it’s mostly the racism, sexism, ableism thing.
I understand the appeal of compassion. Many of our greatest thinkers and political activists spoke to the virtues of compassion. But their quotes are always cherrypicked, and they also spoke strongly against inaction and complacency.
Who are you showing compassion for, white liberals?
If you feel compassion for non-white America, for non-cishet America, for non-neurotypical and disabled America, for non-Christian America, does your compassion not compel you to stand up for them and to fight those who would do them wrong?
Because make no mistake, they are being hurt. They are being hurt by our people and by our society. And Trump has promised to hurt them even more. His supporters have already started.
So please don’t tell me you’re preaching compassion if you are now willing to unify with him and his supporters.
I have known more than a few people in more than a few abusive relationships in my life. I’m no expert on this subject and I would never think to trivialize it. But experts have isolated key factors common to such relationships, and I have observed them to be true in my life.
A common refrain from the outside of an abusive relationship is, “Why don’t they leave? If it’s really so bad, why not just go?”
It’s because the abuser appeals to the better nature of the person they’re abusing.
“Don’t leave. I’m trying to change.”
“Don’t leave. Think of the kids.”
“Don’t leave. I love you so much.”
If you ever look a battered wife in the eye and tell her she needs to show more compassion for her husband, that she needs to try to understand his side, you’re no friend of mine.
You stop the abuser by whatever means you can and you help the victim get out. Whatever that exit plan looks like, you do everything you can to make it happen.
On a related note:
I understand that not everyone can cut ties with the Trump supporters in their life. They are in situations where their livelihood and continued well-being, or at least mental well-being, depends on people who are ardent Trump supporters, and they must keep their horror at him quiet.
To those people I extend my sympathy. I know you cannot tell those close to you how you really feel. But don’t lend your voice to theirs either. Then you are only making your own life better at the expense of others’, by lending validity to a monstrous movement.
“But they’re not all monsters!” I hear some of you saying as you read this. “Not everyone who voted for Trump is racist, or misogynistic, or hates The Gays™!”
You’re wrong.
Everyone who cast their vote for Trump either does hate the groups he explicitly said he’s going to target, or they just don’t care.
And THAT is worse than hatred.
THAT is being so gutless that you won’t lift a finger to help others.
A personal friend of mine was assaulted by a man in a grocery store recently and asked for her green card. She, an incredibly brave woman, posted two public Facebook videos about the incident.
The most horrifying thing I heard in her story was not the man himself. It was the people who stood close by and did nothing.
Tell me those people were not misogynistic. You’re lying if you do.
Tell me people who voted for Trump are not racist. You’re lying if you do.
So I WILL strive for unity—with the people who deserve it. For the people who themselves have given so, so much to their country while their country gave them so little in return.
I will not unify with the party of sexism and racism that hurts them. I will not be one more blank white face standing on the other side of a divide that the marginalized people of this nation never wanted in the first place.
The loudest voices in this call for unity are the same ones who still celebrate the Confederate Flag, a symbol of when they literally rose up in treasonous rebellion against their government.
And you think they really want unity? They want obedience.
Love is not love if only one party feels it. Neither is compassion. Neither is cooperation.
Other white liberals may think they can unify with Trump supporters and a Trump presidency. They deplore talk of “choosing a side.”
In fact, they can unify with Trump. But that will not unify the country. They will be choosing a side after all—and they will help that side further destroy and degrade the people it has been attacking for centuries.
I refuse.
