The cruelty is the point

[Aroura]

Article - The Atlantic

The Trump era is such a whirlwind of cruelty that it can be hard to keep track. This week alone, the news broke that the Trump administration was seeking to ethnically cleanse more than 193,000 American children of immigrants whose temporary protected status had been revoked by the administration, that the Department of Homeland Security had lied about creating a database of children that would make it possible to unite them with the families the Trump administration had arbitrarily destroyed, that the White House was considering a blanket ban on visas for Chinese students, and that it would deny visas to the same-sex partners of foreign officials. At a rally in Mississippi, a crowd of Trump supporters cheered as the president mocked Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who has said that Brett Kavanaugh, whom Trump has nominated to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, attempted to rape her when she was a teenager. “Lock her up!” they shouted.

We can hear the spectacle of cruel laughter throughout the Trump era. There were the border-patrol agents cracking up at the crying immigrant children separated from their families, and the Trump adviser who delighted white supremacists when he mocked a child with Down syndrome who was separated from her mother. There were the police who laughed uproariously when the president encouraged them to abuse suspects, and the Fox News hosts mocking a survivor of the Pulse Nightclub massacre (and in the process inundating him with threats), the survivors of sexual assault protesting to Senator Jeff Flake, the women who said the president had sexually assaulted them, and the teen survivors of the Parkland school shooting. There was the president mocking Puerto Rican accents shortly after thousands were killed and tens of thousands displaced by Hurricane Maria, the black athletes protesting unjustified killings by the police, the women of the #MeToo movement who have come forward with stories of sexual abuse, and the disabled reporter whose crime was reporting on Trump truthfully. It is not just that the perpetrators of this cruelty enjoy it; it is that they enjoy it with one another. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to one another, and to Trump.

This isn’t incoherent. It reflects a clear principle: Only the president and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of the law, and if necessary, immunity from it. The rest of us are entitled only to cruelty, by their whim. This is how the powerful have ever kept the powerless divided and in their place, and enriched themselves in the process.

Trump’s only true skill is the con; his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright. The president’s ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united. And as long as he makes them feel that way, they will let him get away with anything, no matter what it costs them.

This article articulated pretty well why, I think, many people including myself, label Trump supporters as deplorable human beings. They are demonstrably cruel, and more, they are bonded over that cruelty.  They enjoy the suffering of others (only certain others, to be sure, those not in their "in" group).  It helps them feel superior and in control. They are nothing more than a band of bullies, fragile people who need to hurt others to feel better about themselves. 

But, and this is a huge but, they are in control now, and they now feel free to mock, taunt, and bully to their hearts content.

I was just telling another member of this forum about the old movie "They Live", and how it feels a bit like that.  A portion of humans have turned out to be alien monsters just disguised as humans, and this recent election in combination with the anonymity  of the internet, has really allowed us to see them for what they really are.

Much of my life I have spent being an optimist.  I saw the good in people, and I was naive enough to really hope there was a chance the world would one day hold hands and sing kumbaya. Not literally, of course.  I was (and still am) open to people who lived and thought differently than I do.  

But this is different.  Now when I see people calling for unity, for standing together, I think, what fantasy world are they living in? There are some people who not only do not desire unity and acceptance, but mock those who do, bully and shun them.  It is impossible to unite with people who laughs with someone who is mocking disabled people, or people with dead children, or survivors of shootings, sexual assaults, etc.  I can pity and do pity these people, but I don't know that I can ever find common ground with them.

We are a polarized nation, and a polarized planet.  Not split between political ideologies, but moral ones. Those who accept with love, and those who mock with hate.  This isn't politics, this is our very definition of humanity on the line. I honestly don't know how this rift can ever be healed.

[Foxaèr]

We are a polarized nation, and a polarized planet.  Not split between political ideologies, but moral ones. Those who accept with love, and those who mock with hate.  This isn't politics, this is our very definition of humanity on the line. I honestly don't know how this rift can ever be healed.

Plenty of dystopian-type literature informs us of what needs to be done in order to defeat the tyrannical regime; it's certainly not through playing fair or peacefully, because the game is literally rigged in the favor of the powerful.

The problem is that people think, It can't happen here.

Hitler did happen, however, and so has Trump. It is only a matter of time before it is too late. We either wake up to reality and do something, or we suffer for having done nothing.

[John V]

Caught On Tape: Democrat Official Says He’s Glad Steve Scalise Got Shot





There are bad individuals on both sides. Personally, I don't think it's right to use those people to demonize everyone on the other side. YMMV.

[I_am_not_mafia]

It's the school ground bully and his weak willed supporters who never learnt to grow a back bone because they never had to. They do it because they are cowards to their core. It's easier to bunch together and to exploit any weakness that they can find. And because they know that they do this, they assume that everyone else will do this back to them given a chance. So they try to get the first punch in. If they are the ones doing the laughing then they aren't the ones being laughed at. Their snowflake egos won't cope with that.

The time for being nice and reasonable has stopped. These arseholes only understand power. And because they're the weak ones who have led entitled lives, they also won't win any outright confrontation.

We are a polarized nation, and a polarized planet.  Not split between political ideologies, but moral ones. Those who accept with love, and those who mock with hate.  This isn't politics, this is our very definition of humanity on the line. I honestly don't know how this rift can ever be healed.

It happened before in the 30's. It will happen again in another 80 years. Basically the length of the human life span so that the lessons of yesteryear have time to pass out of living memory.

I'm not just talking about Nazi Germany. There were fascists movements in every European country. Only Italy and Germany succumbed.

I am of the opinion though that while these cycles do happen, the fascists can't sustain it. It all comes down to how much power is available. And you need an awful lot of power to subjugate an entire population. No government can resist the people rising up when the government itself is dependent upon those people.

[John V]

We are a polarized nation, and a polarized planet.  Not split between political ideologies, but moral ones. Those who accept with love, and those who mock with hate.  This isn't politics, this is our very definition of humanity on the line. I honestly don't know how this rift can ever be healed.

We're not as polarized as it frequently appears. People who talk politics on social media tend to be pretty far to the left or right. The people in the middle generally don't comment. Same with the news media. The people in the middle generally aren't represented.

The same source you used, The Atlantic, recently published this article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...ss/572581/

According to the report, 25 percent of Americans are traditional or devoted conservatives, and their views are far outside the American mainstream. Some 8 percent of Americans are progressive activists, and their views are even less typical. By contrast, the two-thirds of Americans who don’t belong to either extreme constitute an “exhausted majority.” Their members “share a sense of fatigue with our polarized national conversation, a willingness to be flexible in their political viewpoints, and a lack of voice in the national conversation.”

IOW, the people at the ends of the spectrum are loudest and make us seem much more polarized than we really are.

[I_am_not_mafia]

My question is, where does it end? What is this leading to?

After all, we haven't always been at this point. It's a relatively recent development. I think the turning point came during the Reagan / Thatcher era. Things have developed to the point where we are now with cycles along the way.  You couldn't imagine Reagan, Bush Senior or even Bush junior doing what Trump is doing. Not even Nixon. In the UK the current Tories are going far beyond what their heroine Margaret Thatcher would ever dream of (nationalising the NHS and the Royal Mail). Yes she instigated a hate culture against gay people but the current lot are literally implementing measures which hasten or causes the deaths of the  disabled and infirm and are creating a hostile environment for foreigners so they get deported, even if they have lived here for decades.

Which raises the question. How much further will it go?

Once it becomes normal, the bullies will push for even more control. For more power. For more exploitation. They'll continue pushing until they face resistance.

It's easy to ignore the families that have been torn apart as they try to illegally enter the US. Or the people imprisoned indefinitely without rights in the gulag called Guantanamo Bay regardless of whether they are innocent or guilty.  But then it will be families of illegal immigrants with long established lives in the US. Then other undesirables. Each stage will become normal. At what point do decent folk stand up and say "No more" ?

Don't just think about what is happening now. Think about what's coming next.

[John V]

Don't think about what's really happening. Watch The Handmaid's Tale and pretend that's what's happening.

[Aroura]

Good points and questions, Mathilda.

It's sort of the "Wheel of Time" idea, I guess? That things that happened before are destined to happen again. Humans continually cycle through behavior. Progress is made, people become free(er), then some regime rises up and puts the people under its boot heel, then the people grow tired of it and rebel, and so the cycle repeats endlessly. Maybe there isn't anything that it's leading to except just another repeat.

That seems like a pessimistic interpretation on my part, though. I would like to think that, cycle or no, it's more like 2 steps forward, one step back. We don't lose all progress when these bullies get in charge. Certainly, it seems to be their goal to undo, unmake, and destroy things. They look backwards instead of ahead. But the ideas cannot be killed so easily as repealing a law, and the progress of humanity, as a collective, does still seem to be inching forwards.

You are also right about the playground bully comparison. Spot on. And we should deal with them the same way. Ignore them when we can, confront them when we must. Don't let them gaslight the world.

The question then becomes, how do we resist? I know the majority of western people are progressive, and are dismayed by the current behavior of these alt-right nationalists rising up in so many western countries. I don't think violence is the answer (yet, and maybe never, I'm pretty much a pacifist by nature, but I realize that cannot always apply to everything). Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi are good examples of how to change the world without violence, but it is easier said than done. Alone and individually, it's pretty easy to feel helpless and overwhelmed when the bully pulpits are run by literal bullies.

[Rev. Rye]

I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: as Orwell wrote, “the sole object of power is power.” If you want to try and understand Trump’s regime (or the Republican Party a few years before) and you don’t keep that phrase in mind, YOU. WILL. FAIL.