I was driving through southeastern Wisconsin, past Walker and Steil and Vukmir signs, past “we back the badge” signs in front of subdivided former farmland, when I read the news about yesterday’s shooting. On top of the pipe bombs. On top of “lock her up” and “CNN sucks” and the mindset that anyone who supports the GOP is somehow under siege.
I’ve been saying this for a while, and people keep deliberately not getting it:
Wrong. I won’t be deterred by Trump-inspired terrorism. We will do what’s right for our country. If Donald Trump wants to foment violence in response, that’s his choice. And he’ll face the consequences.
But we do not make decisions based on GOP violence. https://t.co/k0aHhu8e3j
— John Scare-avosis 🇺🇸 (@aravosis) October 24, 2018
Jesus, nobody’s saying leave him in power forever because we’re scared, but we need to be ready for things to get worse if they don’t get better. We need to be ready for things to get worse if they DO get better.
It’ll be really easy for me, middle-class white girl, to pop the champagne if we here in Illinois get rid of our dirtbag MAGA-curious governor and a couple of worthless henchcongressmen. What will be happening, next town over, if they throw out their racist leaders? If the people who’ve been amped up to believe whatever Trump tells them hear that they’re even MORE under attack?
They’ve been wilding out since November of 2016, and that’s when they WON.
And if things don’t go our way? If Trump winds up not checked but fully empowered? What then?
It’s not weakness or cowardice to think about those who are more vulnerable than we are, and pair a thirst for justice with a care for who’s going to be a target of retribution. ESPECIALLY if we’re of the demographic that, let’s say, could blend in at one of these white supremacist rallies being held by THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Who can we protect? Who must we protect? If we don’t plan for that, we’re delusional.
That’s not fear. That’s responsibility. That’s the very least we owe each other in this.
Shortly after 9/11, when the same people now yelling about DEMONCRAPS were beating up Sikh cab drivers, someone threw a bunch of beer bottles through the windows of a local mosque. It was a small storefront on a busy street, and everyone was scared back then, of praying, or not praying, of wearing hijab in public, of what might happen next.
A group from a nearby church called up a nearby synagogue, and they got a bunch of people together the following Friday. They went to the mosque, Christians and Jews. They joined hands around it, so that those inside could pray safely.
Where will you be, and whose hand will you hold, come tomorrow?
A.