It is so, so important to learn to understand the difference between A Gross Thing That Freaks Me Out, versus A Thing Which Causes Actual Harm In The World

because as long as you can't navigate the difference, your disgust is a lever that can be used to manipulate you

They launched a coup, suffered no consequences for it, won back power, and have used the power to pardon everyone involved while remaking the country through violence and intimidation. It’s just ridiculous to talk about the political violence of yelling at ICE agents within that context.

Every day there is a new, even easier litmus test for where we stand on this administration, its agenda, the decades long strategy that put them in place, and the systems and institutions that failed to stop them from getting here.

And some folks (and their orgs) keep failing them, again and again

Ask anyone close to me and they'll tell you that I'm annoyingly committed my belief in the possibility of change, not only in society, but in the hearts of individuals (even those who I don't like at all).

And its not like that belief hasn't been rewarded sometimes.

But man.

time for my new favorite tumblr post

this statement was made just yesterday

The assassination of members of the party who is not in power is the declaration of open season on the perceived electoral minority. It is fundamentally necessary to engage in all-out opposition party tactics. Things will not get better.

Despite warnings from the law enforcement not to attend today’s No Kings rally after this mornings shooting of Minnesota lawmakers with the killer on the lose, the No Kings Rally is happening at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul.

And you know what the talking heads seem to rarely use 'violent' to describe? The systemic destruction of families through ICE detentions and deportations. Breaking a window is framed *primarily* as violence, but taking a grandparent away from their kids or sending someone to a work camp isn't.

This last week is a real demonstration of how capacious, yet flattened the word "violent" is in our political discourse. Political assassinations are obviously, clearly violent. But the same word has been used all week to describe protestors damaging objects--not people, objects.

Which is that some people deserve to die, and are not real Americans or human beings, and any kind of violence can be enacted against them to maintain the racial and gender hierarchy of this country, and that violence is encouraged from regular citizens to the federal government.

So I just have such a hard time playing this game of pretending that political violence here is just a neutral force that is emboldened by the assassination of politicians as much as it is by burning a Waymo car. Because I’ve lived here for a long time and have seen what this country believes.

They’ve bombed abortion clinics, killed doctors, sentenced women to death over unwanted pregnancies, killed trans and queer people for asking for rights. There’s literally no kind of political violence that I’ve not seen come from the right in this country, and it’s never engaged with seriously.

There has never been a time in my life where right wing political violence has been seen as anything serious or wrong. At the most they joke about the victims. Paul Pelosi was attacked in his home, and Vance and his cohorts turned into jokes about him being gay.

I’ve seen the state and its agents pretend that destroying a car in retaliation for them ripping up one’s community be described as unimaginable violence even as police officers with Nazi tattoos, gun down an increasing number of minorities every year.

I’ve seen progressive politicians threatened, stalked, and abused by citizens and their fellow politicians, and it’s mostly a joke. I’ve seen activists assassinated, protestors feel the force of the state and its legal apparatus, and women/children/minorities murdered in the name of supremacy.

The idea that this political violence is the consequence of people on both sides cheering it on seems like a sympathetic point but just doesn’t hold up to history. In my adult life, I’ve seen people on the right do everything from kill politicians to kill regular citizens, and it’s shrugged off.