Russians who are resisting Putin are not our allies... no, they are our brothers and sisters.

As opposed to Trump

It's day vs night, bigger than Democratic Party vs Republican Party or left wing vs right wing, it's...

Meritocracy vs inheritance
Action vs reaction
Activism vs laziness
Civic participation vs keeping others away from the table
Inclusion vs exclusion
Pluralism vs exclusivism
Self-empowerment vs hostile privilege
Progress vs holding onto the past
"I earned it because I work hard, I study hard, and I didn't do it alone" vs "I earned it because I'm rich and that automatically makes me right and smarter than everyone else"
Hope and change vs paranoia and stagnation

There's a real possibility that when people think of "America", inside and out, they no longer see Trump's mug, but these 4 Congresswomen.

I know I do.

That might also explain the fixation from the right against these 4. They want to destroy the set of things on the left side of that list.

The contest to be the face of America is going on now. I'd rather have the values of that left side of that be our symbolic face, even if that means a permanently diminished symbolic role for the POTUS even after Trump.

Where:

One person's access to healthcare is made sweeter simply because other people do not have access to healthcare

"Good national security" means there is a mass shooter, but it's just a white guy, so you can relax

A heterosexual rapist is somehow more mature and respectable than a law abiding and loving GLBTQ person

"Socialism" is anything that's not acting like a degenerate, a sociopath, putting profits ahead of human lives, or a combination of those things

One's love for their country is put on trial by those who have no love for their country

If you run afoul of them, be prepared to face death threats and insinuations that in any other culture would be taboo to not only participate in but to also accuse people of being in them... like Pizzagate or QAnon

We're told that "all lives matter", but so do statues dedicated to traitors for some reason

We're supposed to have peace with Russia so we can wage war on 1.5 billion Muslims

"True" religion is now a backer of power and status quo seen in things like prosperity gospel, things where you being rich and powerful must be a sign that God loves you

It's apparently "reasonable" to think that if a kid doesn't want to be shot in school, then they must have had their mind warped by "George Soros and his je-'globalist' buddies"

According to Tucker Carlson, a government sometimes has to kill people, but Twitter enforcing it's TOS, that is what is beyond the pale

...

Defend others from them
Vote against them
Deplatform them
Discredit them
Debunk them
Defund them

Ignoring them won't work though, this completely immoral right wing is on parade and it's only going to get worse.

as the "division" and "incivility" ships are.

Perhaps even more dangerous.

The idea that we can simply debate or discuss away racism, sexism, classism, the hypocrisy and double standards surrounding Trump and right wing evangelicals and coming from them on a daily basis, white nationalism and white nationalist terrorism, etc. is naive at best, lazy in the middle, and outright running away from the issue at worst.

Idealism is a nice thing to have, don't get me wrong, but warm fuzzy feelings and nothing but are going to get us the same thing that 65 million votes got us in 2016.

You can point out the fact that middle America or the "real American" is losing his job because a rich white man is closing down the factory and that it is a rich white Republican cutting his safety net all day every day, but you know what? He's still going to blame immigrants for taking his job and minorities for leaving him in the lurch. Happens every time.

This didn't happen overnight, the same forces that turned just the word "liberal" into a pejorative have been cornering the market on using cognitive distortions (Like black and white thinking such as something they don't like being "socialism" ), logical fallacies, ignoring cost-benefit, not caring about the long term consequences of one's actions, and more in our political landscape and using them as rhetorical tools.

And we shouldn't be a party to this, by letting them get away with the lack of rationality, we are contributing to this. It's time to say no more; from debates on forums to discussions at family dinner tables all the way to what we see in DC and as we go into the 2020 election, if people can't discuss things as rational actors, then there's no point in having a discussion and we need to call that out.

And as for platforms that traffic in these things... sites like Infowars, groups like the Alt-Right, and QAnon; looking at you fools... shut them down.

I read the Declaration of Independence and see the things the founding fathers went to war over and these are things we let Trump and McConnell do and then we say "Oh well" or "Elections have consequences" to.

"He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. AKA gerrymandering.

"He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. OK

"He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. Ahem, Merrick Garland might have something to say about that.

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. Future Space Force

"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. The 'national emergency' right there

"He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. Military budget right there for you

"For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: Talk to AG Barr about that one

"For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: It sure would be nice to have a government that represents us, one man, one vote. That sort of thing.

"For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: What Trump's bff Putin wants, he's not going to denounce it, are we going to see it here?

So I guess maybe an apology to the British crown and the people of Britain is in order if we're not going to keep living up to the same standards we set up for ourselves in 1776 when we declared independence from them, if we like living under the thumb of McConnell and Trump and being subject to their whims, then at least we should say to the British that we didn't mean all those things back in 1776. It makes sense.

This is what they have been doing... they've whipped up a generation of Americans to see the liberal as the "Them", as a pejorative, you've got Keith Ablow saying on Fox News that the Unabomber had a point about liberalism being bad, and frankly, if liberals started coming out and saying they were against cannibalism, incest, and human sacrifice, we'd have people coming out FOR them and they've got all the "reasons" for it on lock. A combination of contrarianism and conditioning has led us to this point.

I have a feeling that Putin was practicing that speech against liberalism for years, years before Trump was even elected. Just looking for a place to use it, I'm sure he has more lined up.

The authoritarian uses things up and then discards them when they no longer have value to them, you know how how Trump was questioning Obama's legitimacy for 8 years through the racist birther movement then suddenly disavowed when it was clear he was going to win the nomination? Like that.

That applies to people too, just ask the people of Ryazan in 1999 or the people of Beslan when the Russian government needed to look strong against Islamist terrorists and decided to wipe EVERYONE out.

You, me... we're fodder to the authoritarian, an interchangeable part. The same as the 30%ers too, but they won't realize that.

Giving hugs to people who say "I'm not racist but..." won't stop this; it's the Constitution, American values, freedom, equality, guaranteed rights and protections on side and authoritarianism on the other.

I think the least horrible solution here is removing the platform of the authoritarian, it's what we got to do.

When I was a kid, I read the story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin, it stuck with me, I read this story before Trump, before Obama, before George W Bush even to give you an idea, and it stuck with me, that's why I'm bringing it up now. It haunted me so to speak.

I suggest reading it, I will say this though, Omelas is a place of greatness and wonder, but something dark and evil powers that greatness and wonder.

And then I see the US, I see how great and wonderful we're supposed to be, but what is the cost of that greatness?

This is made all the more apparent in the conditions the detained children are in. How squalid these conditions are or dealing with angry and sadistic guards. "We" are expected to feel better about ourselves, safer, more secure, superior because "we" can and do this to children.

The "Great Again" in "Make America Great Again" is our Omelas.

But I'm not content with just walking away from Omelas, Omelas should fall.

Are now urging war over a Totally Authentic Video that shows Totally Iran doing Totally Bad Things.

Don't let 2019 be a repeat of 2003.

It's the wing of the political spectrum that says valuing human lives over confederate statues, that getting vaccinated, that buying supplies before a potential disaster, and, oh right, not wanting to get shot in school are all examples of "socialism" today.

It's weird how this isn't obvious to everyone.

Our system isn't perfect, it could always use more and more reform, but not letting 11 year old girls become mothers is a step in the right direction.

Let's work to ensure it wasn't a step in the right direction.

Childhood is a social construct, but it's one that has created a degree of social equality... that it doesn't matter if you are poor or rich, if you are a CHILD, you shouldn't be working or being a mother, you shouldn't be worried about money or carrying children, you should be learning, socializing, and having fun.

This isn't a coincidence, this isn't a bug, an unintended consequence of the right wing agenda. The concept of a universal childhood is a blow against social stratification, the child of a richer-than-God parent has something in common with the child of a poorer-than-dirt parent. And of course if these bans go through, the child of a richer-than-God parent won't be forced to give birth, it's not going to happen, we all know that.

The right wing at it's core likes social stratification, it desires it, it sees it as normal and even a good thing. Heck, this goes back to the very root of left vs right in the French Revolution; somebody is supposed to be a king and somebody is supposed to be a peasant.

It's funny, we're being told people on the Democratic side and the Republican side need to stop being divided and come together, yet here we are, creating divisions between the rich and the poor, making the class system more and more real, more palpable.