No more tolerating of the intolerant

Pretty much anyone who didn't grow up in the U.S. knows this

A friend of mine, who is an academic, just returned from a conference about the rising threat of authoritarianism and reported that every single Latin American academic she talked to said the same thing, “What is going on in the U.S.? Why are media companies, universities, businesses, state and local governments already giving into the unconstitutional demands of the administration?”

Privilege, or at least assumed privilege, can be a powerful blinding veil to the very real threats that the vulnerable feel immediately.

For the somewhat privileged in the U.S., what has transpired in the last seven months may not be a big deal. People snatched off the streets by masked thugs claiming to be law enforcement agents? Sure, those people deserved it. Except that more and more people are being released out of the gulags both here and overseas. Even Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom The Regime claimed was one of the “worst of the worst,” is back in the U.S., and not one but two judges ruled in his favor, calling the government’s claims of his gang activity “fanciful.” You don’t hear judges using the adjective “fanciful,” very often and that’s very telling. I’m pretty sure it translates to “bullshit,” in colloquial vernacular.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, case after case of supposed “violent attacks on federal agents” are also being dismissed, due to “false claims,” made by agents. Translation: They lied.

The Regime said that it would try to “shock and awe,” this nation and, “flood the zone with shit,” and it most certainly delivered.

Universities, one after the other, falling like dominoes—Columbia, UCLA (which just settled a lawsuit, handing $50K a piece to each student and faculty who were offended by the anti-war protests), and last but not the least, my own alma mater, The University of Kansas, which just directed all employees to delete their pronouns from their email signatures.

Not to mention, the complete and utter destruction of major U.S. agencies and departments, especially those helping the most vulnerable among us…

And on and on, the list of attacks on the soul of the Republic, the Constitution and basic tenets of democracy and human rights are too long for one little blog post.

Yet, we have failed to make the staunch supporters of this cruel Regime the new Nickelback. They still exist all around us, and somehow, miraculously, still being included in social and political discourse, as if any respect is owed to them. John Pavlovitz says, “No,” by the way.

“Sure, we disagree on national issues, but we agree on local ones,” is one argument I heard this week and it nearly made my head explode.

How can you possibly separate the national from the local right now? When the federal government sends directives to local municipalities to get rid of all DEI policies to continue receiving funding, as my hometown just went through in May?

How can you possibly sit and talk with people who are rejoicing the removal of those pesky pronouns from email signatures? Is it because you don’t personally know even one person who gets misgendered in public on the daily?

What is it going to take for you to understand what is at stake here? Do you need to get one of your family members sent to a concentration camp to finally get it? Or for your grandma to die? (Grams has a year and a half, by the way, since they didn’t dare roll out the Medicaid cuts until after the midterms.)

It is truly astonishing to all of us who were born in other countries who have seen this play out. It is truly astonishing to anyone who is not a WASP, what’s at play here.

But, the privileged, or the self-assumed privileged, still do not get it.

For the life of me, I will never understand how people think any of this is just a slight disruption in the political climate.

It is not. The Titanic has hit the iceberg. You can keep running from port to starboard, looking for a lifeboat, keeping your little comforts and privileges, but in the end most of us will drown.

I refuse to break bread with people who appease the fascists. I’m done with the “good people” looking for bipartisanship. In the words of Georgie, “You are either with us, or with the terrorists.”

I’m drawing my line in the sand.