In it together?

November 16, 2016

Here we are at the beginning of Trump Times week two and reality continues to warp.  We have the president-elect telling (over) half the population to “Don’t be afraid” in a kind of creepy fashion.  We have a new White House chief strategist who ran a White Supremacists web site.  We continue to have incidents of racial violence spiking all over the country.  We have a Trump immigration advisor drafting a plan for a Muslim registry.  We have mainstream media telling us more speculative stories based on their bullshit polls.

Oh, and we have our leaders on the Left and Right telling us we all are in this together!

No, we’re not.

Clearly, there is an us and a them.  The people who are about to assume control simply hate us and are disinterested in inclusion.  I know this is a harsh thought.  Perhaps I can soften it with a poem:

Why?
They hate us cause we’re different
Not respectable, but sleazy
Even hate us cause of who we love
Mostly cause it’s easy

We need to make hating us less easy.  And I don’t mean by being more lovable (we are already adorable).  I mean by pushing back, by applying some cost to each act of hate.  For instance, why not troll right-wing sites and blogs?  I know, it can be time consuming, but if you wanted to write silly fiction here’s a waiting audience.

I think it would be helpful for someone to troll Trump into a protracted twitter fight.  We, of course, can expect short, intermittent, tweet-storms from the Donald.  But there may be value in keeping him provoked all the time.  We all know that once engaged in a twitter-jerk he just can’t let go.

IRL let’s not just stand by and watch when some asshole yells racist/misogynistic/bigoted shit at people in public.  Allow the victims their response, then publicly support them.  Yell back; call the authorities; press charges if you can.  Don’t make it easy.

Hmm, just realized that what I seem to be saying is, “Be nasty”.  Yeah, no need to be nice – thoughtful, honest, forthright – sure.  But, perhaps, a more aggressive delivery is indicated.  They’re going to call us nasty anyway, shall we embrace it?  After all, we’re in it together.

That’s all I got today.  Take care of yourselves and each other,

osv