Distractions, eh? Really, now

One more word about distractions…

Trump will do something racist and then push through some kind of backdoor policy. The standard reaction to this is, “Don’t pay attention to the stuff he says!”

Fuck. That.

First of all, the idea that the best thing to do would be to ignore the most powerful man in the world (who also happens to be more stupid than literally anyone I’ve ever met) is maybe the most dangerous thing I can imagine.

But second of all, if someone socks you in the mouth, knocking your teeth out and then immediately knees you in the groin, were your teeth just a bunch of little distractions? Or are both actions bad and things necessary to defend against?

If that’s too abstract, ask yourself this: Do you think the president wouldn’t be pushing through those bullshit policies anyway? Do you think that he would somehow be totally flummoxed and completely inert if we ignored his racism? Well, guess what-the-fuck what. Presidents have been pushing a whole lot of bullshit policies through back doors without “distracting” us with blatant racism for a long fucking time. Also, let me give you a gentle reminder that he himself put a probable rapist/definite tantrum-y milksop on the Supreme Goddamn Court on live TV in front of God and everybody. He didn’t need any distractions to throw that shit in the country’s face.

And another thing, as far as action goes, we are ignoring his racism. Lawmakers haven’t done a thing about it. No, it’s not illegal for the president to be racist or even misogynist for that matter, but it definitely should be because how are you going to lead a country full of people if you hate most of them?

You know what is illegal? Accusing the president of racism on the floor of the Senate. That’s right. There are rules prohibiting the people whose job it is to keep the president in check from doing that very thing—when it comes to race. They can’t even bring it up. So, they are left to ignore his white supremacy. But ignoring his white supremacy will only normalize it and you know what else? Normalizing white supremacy isn’t just bad for people of color. It’s bad for white people, too.

Even on the most basic level, when white supremacists decide to start killing people, they don’t just target people of color. Please see the Manson killings, Columbine massacre and Oklahoma City bombing for more information on what you might not have even realized was avowed white supremacy in action.

The truth is that his policies are going to be trash, he’s going to say some racist and misogynist shit and those things are all bound to occasionally happen at the same time. They are not distractions from one another anymore than the March on Washington, Women’s Strike for Equality or Stonewall Riots were a distraction from the Vietnam War. Multiple bad things happen at the same time all the time. Failing to understand that is the true distraction.


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