There is no such thing as the alt-right. There is only the right wing. I’m through with making excuses for seemingly decent people. That happened in Germany during the Nazi Era. It happened in every damn place atrocities like the Holocaust occurred. Good folks made excuses for psychopaths because good folks didn’t want to believe their friends and family were capable of being evil. Yet, those loved ones were. It’s far easier to pretend that monsters do these things and not the people we know.
Even if this alienates friends of mine, I refuse to let this take a backseat for fear of ruffling their feathers. To those who think this is directed at them, I say: If you don’t like being thrown in the barrel with those who do bad things, then you shouldn’t support them. In one breath you insist that you are not racist or sexist, and that you simply want the government to watch their spending. Yet, your actions speak much louder. Hanging out with folks who crack inappropriate jokes, or outright insist that black people, women, and gays are conflating their experiences to get free shit says as much about you as it does about them. No. You’re not taking the high road and being a good person. No. Allowing others to think freely isn’t an excuse. These opinions are not okay to have and much less to express. Why is that? First of all, you never question the thinking behind it. Secondly, you don’t disagree, unless it’s to be offended that someone accuses you of being or supporting bigotry, like your liberal friends. Not making waves—yeah, that’s what you tell us. You don’t like to make waves. This all does real harm. Looking away allows the seeds of malevolence to flourish. Looking away says that you don’t mind so much that terrible things are done, because deep down, you want them to happen, so you can have things a certain way. Microagressions aside, looking away is your active compliance in the system.
Not standing up makes you complicit. That’s why the right wing is so damn toxic.
I have news for you: calling someone a bleeding heart, maligning empathy as something to be ashamed of, is a sure sign that your priorities are messed the hell up. If we were on sides in Star Wars, love, you’d be the Empire or First Order, and those liberals you like to name call would be the Rebellion (no, not the Clinton supporting middle road kids, but the real progressives). If you think otherwise, you’re seriously confused about how this all works.
There is no alt-right. Right wing voters agree with everything their supposed fringe group says. It’s in the actions taken when no one is looking and when they are looking. It’s in the whispers among friends. It’s historical fact. Conservatives have been continuously, relentlessly on the wrong side of history. That is a legacy they have built for themselves, and neither I or anyone else should help them rewrite it so they can continue to manipulate, abuse, and degrade our society. It is their biggest outright lie to say that they are not bad people, and that they are entitled to their opinions free of judgment (consequences).
For my liberal friends who hate to, or are afraid to, label people, I want you to take a moment and ask yourself: on the left, is there anything that your fellow liberals do that makes you hang your head in shame? I mean something that we don’t actually address and try to put an end to? (i.e. – anti-vaxx is addressed on the daily by science loving lefties. It is not tolerated. Those people are on the actual fringe, and not allowed to set the tone or policy for our medical future. Those who say feminism is over, and we have equality, along with those still trotting out Microagressions toward POC.) I honestly cannot say that there is a vocal group on the left that engages politically at unhinged levels. Certainly, there are those who claim to be progressives or democrats who are not (trading racist and sexist jokes, supporting the status quo—as mentioned above). Those people belong on the right, and they know it, but they need deniability to complete the illusion they create around themselves. (Yes, the left calls them out.) It was the reason for the fissure over Hillary and Bernie. It has led to the mass exit of voters from the Democratic rolls. And it has led us to refusing to give a damn about the tender feelings of right wing voters who don’t like being painted with their own brush.
We must face the fact that there is no alt-right, just the right wing, and that the things they are doing are dragging us backward. We must accept that their supporters all do their part to keep the current flowing in that direction. It is necessary, in fact, before anymore people get hurt, that we address the truth.
Look. Sociopaths can only do their worst if we continue to pretend they’re harmless, and support their narrative that they’re just good folks with opinions that differ from our own. Our empathy is being used against us. We don’t have to allow it. That will only ever be the gateway to a living hell.
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