Smother the Hornet

[forgotmylogin]

[Reposting this in the clear as my original was a buried reply in another thread and it sums up my feelings about current politics]
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100218749173

The MAGAs want to actually "Make America Racist Again"

So many people want to blame any problem in America and their own personal issues on a scapegoat rather than take responsibility to make a change. It's immigrants "takin our jerbs!" and minorities "sucking up government assistance" that makes things hard for blue-collars, not that they won't support union reform or fixing the problems so there's something for everyone.

Many Americans of past generations and new ones through learned behavior, sadly, have always been closet racists and/or xenophobes. Trump gave them permission to say the quiet part out loud again and they don't want to go back. These are the people who will overlook any wrongdoing by a candidate just because that message aligns with their sad fears. And these chosen scapegoats are groups that bigots already hold disdain for: minorities, immigrants, LGBTQIA2S+, etc. They would be more than happy to just eliminate these groups, though doing so would not improve life, and likely would degrade it. That 33% support for Trump that seems unshakable are those people and nothing is going to change their minds.

I've always held the position that conservativism is the politics of exclusion and liberalism is the politics of inclusion. Democrats want to create change and make sure everyone can subsist and have a decent life. Republicans want to blame someone or something else that is keeping them from making the changes and take resources and rights away from the people they feel unworthy to allegedly reserve them for (white/straight/cis) 'Muricans when the truth is everyone has to give something to get something else in return.

It's easier (both politically and personally) to blame all problems on something that's allegedly preventing beneficial change than to actually buckle down and take responsibility to make the changes that benefit everyone - which is what Joe Biden (who has evolved his philosophies over the years as things change) believes in - compromise for everyone. This was exactly proven when Trump managed to scuttle a border deal that was more than the Democrats wanted and much that the Republicans did want because it would eliminate a scapegoat the rightwing could campaign and complain about.

This is exactly spelled out in Wicked, both the musical, upcoming movie, and the source novel - which is actually a reactionary political parable of the Bush era but still holds true today: "Elphaba – when I first got here, there was discord and discontent. And where I come from, everyone knows: the best way to bring folks together, is to give them a really good enemy." That's the quickest and easiest way, but not the right way - by "othering" a group and saying "all your problems will go away if we eliminate these people." These groups were never a problem before Trump stirred up a hornet's nest of racism and bigotry.

This is the one thing Donald Trump believes in: Keep people mad, and keep telling people he's the only person who can fix it when the truth is we all need to fix it. He's got his devoted 33% and we need to ensure enough people vote that the 33% doesn't statistically become 51%+ at the voting booth via ignorance nor apathy. The electoral college can easily steal the popular vote from a Democrat unless rational people swarm the polls like honeybees to overwhelm an invading hornet, which happened in 2020 and we need to do it again harder this year so even if they twiddle the numbers and scream about election fraud, like 2020 it will never be enough to actually overturn a valid election in their favor.

[BaronChocula]

1. K&R

[GuppyGal]

2. Literally look up the definition of the words conservative and liberal or progressive and it says it all. nt

[Earth-shine]

3. Haters gonna hate. There's always another "other."

After they have eliminated all the ones they say they hate: blacks, Jews, LGBTQ+, immigrants, etc., they would turn on each other for whatever minor impurities would be found.

[forgotmylogin]

4. Remember when we were racist against the Irish and it was rooted in religion?

https://www.history.com/news/when-america-despised-the-irish-the-19th-centurys-refugee-crisis

The discrimination faced by the famine refugees was not subtle or insidious. It was right there in black and white, in newspaper classified advertisements that blared “No Irish Need Apply.” The image of the simian Irishman, imported from Victorian England, was given new life by the pens of illustrators such as Thomas Nast that dripped with prejudice as they sketched Celtic ape-men with sloping foreheads and monstrous appearances.

In 1849, a clandestine fraternal society of native-born Protestant men called the Order of the Star Spangled Banner formed in New York. Bound by sacred oaths and secret passwords, its members wanted a return to the America they once knew, a land of “Temperance, Liberty and Protestantism.” Similar secret societies with menacing names like the Black Snakes and Rough and Readies sprouted across the country.

Within a few years, these societies coalesced around the anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant American Party, whose members were called the “Know-Nothings” because they claimed to “know nothing” when questioned about their politics. Party members vowed to elect only native-born citizens—but only if they weren’t Roman Catholic. “Know-Nothings believed that Protestantism defined American society. From this flowed their fundamental belief that Catholicism was incompatible with basic American values,” writes Jay P. Dolan in The Irish Americans: A History.

Buoyed by the war-cry “Americans must rule America!”, the Know-Nothings elected eight governors, more than 100 congressmen and mayors of cities including Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago in the mid-1850s. They found their greatest success in Massachusetts where in 1854 the American Party captured all state offices, the entire State Senate and all but a handful of seats in the House chamber. According to Dolan, once in power in Massachusetts the Know-Nothings mandated the reading of the King James Bible in public schools, disbanded Irish militia units while confiscating their weapons and deported nearly 300 poor Irish back to Liverpool because they were a drain on the public treasury. They also barred naturalized citizens from voting unless they had spent 21 years in the United States.

Remember when we were racist against Italians?

https://www.history.com/news/italian-american-internment-persecution-wwii

The Berizzis were just a few of at least 600,000 Italians and Italian Americans—many of them naturalized citizens—swept up in a wave of racism and persecution during World War II. Hundreds of Italian “enemy aliens” were sent to internment camps like those Japanese Americans were forced into during the war. More than 10,000 were forced from their homes, and hundreds of thousands suffered curfews, confiscations and mass surveillance during the war. They were targeted despite a lack of evidence that traitorous Italians were conducting spy or sabotage operations in the United States.

The roots of the actions taken by the U.S. government against Italian Americans can be found not just in Italy’s role as an Axis power during World War II, but in longstanding prejudice in the United States itself. Beginning in the second half of the 19th century, Italians began immigrating to the United States in droves. By 1920, more than 10 percent of all foreign-born people in the U.S. were Italian, and more than 4 million Italian immigrants had come to the United States.

Italians were the biggest group of immigrants to enter the U.S., and vibrant Italian American enclaves sprang up around the country. As the number of Italian immigrants grew, so did anti-Italian sentiment. Italians were painted as subhuman and undesirable, and employers often refused to hire people of Italian extraction.

Remember when we were racist against Asians--oh...

https://time.com/5858649/racism-coronavirus/

Today, as the U.S. struggles to combat a global pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 120,000 Americans and put millions out of work, President Donald Trump, who has referred to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus” and more recently the “kung flu,” has helped normalize anti-Asian xenophobia, stoking public hysteria and racist attacks. And now, as in the past, it’s not just Chinese Americans receiving the hatred. Racist aggressors don’t distinguish between different ethnic subgroups—anyone who is Asian or perceived to be Asian at all can be a victim. Even wearing a face mask, an act associated with Asians before it was recommended in the U.S., could be enough to provoke an attack.

Since mid-March, STOP AAPI HATE, an incident-reporting center founded by the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, has received more than 1,800 reports of pandemic-fueled harassment or violence in 45 states and Washington, D.C. “It’s not just the incidents themselves, but the inner turmoil they cause,” says Haruka Sakaguchi, a Brooklyn-based photographer who immigrated to the U.S. from Japan when she was 3 months old.

[Earth-shine]

5. Do I remember? Well, I was pretty young then.

But, I do remember reading about these events.

Hating others, largely out of irrational fears and differences, is a big part of our human nature.