Jared Yates Sexton. “They’ll stand by a man everyone agrees is a serial predator.”

Posted on November 29, 2017 Updated on November 29, 2017

“With Trump’s base showing strong preferences for authoritarianism, and continuing to support a serial predator of children, it’s time to look this problem in its face.  This isn’t a political problem. This is a societal issue, a major major existential problem with who we are and how we view the world.  This is no longer about Democrats and Republicans, even through the latter fostered this group and gave it power and influence.  This is something larger.  We have a substantial group in this country who are okay with a president who would stamp out free speech, free press, and are comfortable with foreign influence and collusion.  They didn’t blink when a woman was murdered by white supremacists.  They do’t worry about mass shootings.  They support fascism in totality.  We’re so focused on Trump and this political circus that we’re missing the BIG BIG picture.  We have a growing, powerful section of our fellow citizens who do not believe in a democratic, shared society.  They only care about our laws and customs when they help them.  They do not believe in the Constitution or any founding principles unless they’re advantageous.  When those principles and customs are used to progress things, they them wholly and fall back on authoritarian ideals and fascist behavior.  They’ve always been here.  They’ve been slaveholders.  They’ve been confederates.  They’ve been our neighbors.  They’ve been or family.  Republicans fostered them as a means to push their policies and leveraged their worst instincts.  Now, they’ve lost hold of the leash and have been taken over from the inside.  Trump didn’t create this.  He is the total personification of this worldview.  He was elected to be their avatar because he is as lost in this as they are.  And as long as we keep looking at this as a Trump problem we’re not going to see the whole picture and we’re not going to even begin addressing it.  This is an education problem.  This is a social problem.  This is the heart of every corrosive element in this society.  It beats every second and spreads the infection further.  They’ll stand by Trump, a dangerous authoritarian.  They’ll stand by a man everyone agrees is a serial predator.  There’s literally no telling what they’ll stand by.  I know we all hope Roy Moore is the bottom of the hole, but it’s not.  If we don’t begin addressing this, we’re going to find that Moore is only the beginning.  If you come from a family like mine, you know that there are Americans who hold Adolf hitler in high regard.  Who say he had “good ideas.”  If people like Trump continue to push them further, there’s literally no telling what they’ll allow or what they’ll support.  This is how a democracy backslides into a fascist state.  I know people who have openly dreamed of having America a fascist country.  They talk all the time about how much better it would be.  This isn’t a slippery slope.  It’s a bottomless pit and we’d better start trying to find purchase and look at this ting in the face or else we’re going to fall and fall and fall. Believe me.  The people I know who would be okay with it?  They’re everywhere.  They work with you.  They shop at your stores.  They’d tell you to your face just what they would be okay with.  We cannot let them continue to build a base and have a seat at the table.  That only empowers them and furthers the danger.  Focus on Trump and Moore, but remember that this is so much larger than him.  They are symptoms of the disease and the disease worsens and spreads by the day.

posted originally on Twitter, 11/25/17

Thinking about authoritarianism when it comes to family systems and how insidious and toxic it can be….

…ahhh who does not acknowledge is doomed to repeat…:/