In the last year I’ve been attacked from the Left for pragmatism and from both men and women for being under-educated on the topics I choose to address, but it was a woman, someone I’ve known for at least 20 years, who got me the hardest in recent memory, for being unwilling to show up at a protest rally of all things.
I have said repeatedly that I won’t go to rallies because I’m a single parent and a homeowner. Getting arrested for protesting would be irresponsible at best. She didn’t hear what I had to say. Instead, she accused me of attacking HER for being childless and somehow less valuable at her workplace.
FB doesn’t tell you when people unfollow you, but I’m reasonably sure that this is precisely what she did. It’s her loss, not mine. There’s no reasoning with some people, even when you’ve known them for 20 years or more. Even when they’re liberals who think they’re acting in the best interests of the people.
I believe that education is the key to everything. You need to understand history to see the parallels between the movement that spawned the N..i movement (not using the word on FB to avoid flagging this post and being shut down, but you know what I mean), to understand Standard Oil robber barons and the Gilded Age, and to see slavery in modern times.
Just look at the War on Drugs, the for-profit prison system, and ICE deportation centers as just a few of the examples.
I believe that groups like Indivisible and Emily’s List can help bring about change. I think it’s important to get the word out about where we’ve been and where we’re going. We need to stop shutting down those like me who see the parallels and actually LOOK at them.
No, we’re not pre-war “Weimar Republic” Germany. Our wars are fought on other continents, out of sight, so we don’t see the death and destruction others are suffering elsewhere unless we tune in to watch. The Great Depression was a global event, too, but we don’t realize it because we aren’t taught about the history that led to WWII, so we miss the signs.
At the end of the day, Primaries are all about partisan politics. We have suffered erosion for decades because some people refuse to look at history or understand why we are where we are today. Others still claim, 45 years after the fact, that the Democratic party is the party of racism, because they leave out the part about Nixon’s Southern Strategy, when the racists joined the Republicans.
That inconvenient truth makes for good excuses when the Democratic Party’s candidate fails the Liberal purity test. It’s easier to blame someone else than it is to accept responsibility in the pursuit of idealism.
If I had a dollar for every Independent or Green in the last year who said “I think for myself” while cheerfully voting third party or choosing not to vote at all, all the while hollering “Anyone but Hillary!!!” I’d be independently wealthy.
But that’s not the point. Those words shut down the conversation just as thoroughly. And that’s how we got here.
Purity tests are for middle school students. Grow up!
We’re talking about a political sea change from democracy to a fascist oligarchy. Watch Sinclair Broadcast Group take over the media and know that there are tens of thousands of people who only have access to broadcast TV, who have no way to filter out the propaganda and don’t believe the truth is real. Those are the people we have to reach. Eating our own doesn’t help US.
This is why I continue to vote for the people who have my best interests in mind and why I wrote to my representatives about the DCCC. And why, generally, there aren’t many Independent or Green voters left in my FB feed.
Third party votes erode leads. Protest votes don’t matter to the winners. And purity tests will cost us everything if they allow the fascists to win.
One last thing: I’ve spent a lot of time pushing the 1984 narrative, showing where there are parallels with today’s governmental shift.
Where did George Orwell get his basic concept? It didn’t just spawn out of nowhere.
Hint: He wrote the book right at the end of WWII. It doesn’t take a genius to extrapolate from Germany c. 1946 to today. It just takes education and experience.