"It has to be admitted, people responded to Trump for what he is. Which means we are left with the statements and proposals by which he distinguished himself. And millions of us—tens of millions—preferred him specifically for those points of difference, either excited by his promises to return us to a time when our system existed only for the benefit of certain people, and the preferences and needs of all others were beneath consideration, or at least willing to overlook those promises, in favor of some material or policy advantage.
And ultimately, the reason is immaterial. A man ran for president promising to use the power of the state to bring violence to scapegoated religious and ethnic minorities, to make America torture again, to make it easier for an already-militarized police force to employ violence, who praised dictators, who bragged about sexual assault, who praised vengeance as good, who promoted debunked conspiracy as fact, who stated his determination to ignore as conspiracy what the data overwhelmingly indicates is an oncoming global catastrophe. There was some other reason to vote for him, that allowed you to overlook these facts?
Save it, please. It really doesn't matter. It was a bad reason. We’ve seen this movie before.
Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed. That word is "Nazi." Historians study their motives, but there is a broad understanding: their motives don’t exonerate them. They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?"
— A. R. Moxon: Very Fine People, pp. 31-32
Read "Sky" by @JuliusGoat@mastodon.social here:
#VeryFinePeople #Books #TheReframe #Essays #USpol #USA #Fascism
