I'm a soccer fan, but one thing I've been able to miss is the appalling "barstool sports" sort of "fan culture" shit. Apparently it's a thing, and not a good one. One of the staff over at Lawyers, Guns, & Money has a post up about this freakish "sports fandom fandom" that cuts to the real heart of our national problem:
"There are so many parallels between the popularity of Barstool and MAGA, it’s frightening. In fact, as this podcast very astutely points out, things like Barstool and Gamergate were very much proving grounds for MAGA. They’re all cults centered around the most toxic idiots on the internet. They’re all troll armies. They all have an undisguised loathing for women and POC. And most importantly they’re all movements and moments that give people permission to be their absolute worst selves.
Editing to say: It really hit me how much MAGA centers on monetizing being awful and how absolutely dystopian that is"
Tl:dr? "MAGA means never having to say you're sorry you're an asshole."
Here's my question, though; what the everlovin' fuck do you do with someone who WANTS to be an unapologetic asshole?
Seriously.
How do you possible "reach" someone like that?
Because the implicit part of being an unapologetic asshole is that you want, expect, and will fight to ensure that the "public square" is asshole-friendly. You're gonna do everything you can to ensure that there's no, not the slightest hint of, pushback against your assholery. You're never going to back down, give up, or give in.
Which is what we've seen from MAGA since Day Zero.
These dickstains have been loud and proud up in the grille of everyone and everything that has tried to stand up to or against them. Now, especially, since they have all the levers of federal power they've forced their opponents to bend the knee. And to their eternal shame, many have; universities, media conglomerates, pundits, functionaries.
Which is why I keep repeating; we, the non-asshole non-MAGAts, need to realize that
We
Are
At
War
with these people and their institutions.
They know they are; their openly stated objectives are to crush us and destroy everything we value. They are not our fellow Americans, not our fellow citizens, but our mortal enemies.
Because that sort of person is effectively unredeemable our battle must not be directed at them but against those around them, the non-voter, the marginal MAGAt (who cannot be won but who can be disheartened or frightened and terrorized into passivity), the "independent".
We have to detach and discourage the auxiliaries if we are ever to hope to crush the MAGAts.
Because that has to be our ultimate goal.
The lessons of Reconstruction, and the post-WW2 occupations, need to be absorbed this time.
After WW2 we hung the enemies, and hunted and terrified their partisans into fearful silence. After our own Civil War we pardoned the enemies and, as part of reconciling our society, let them craft their shitty Lost Cause stories into our national myths.
But.
Assholes are always gonna asshole. There's no changing them, or that. Instead they must be forced into silence, and since they feel no shame, by fear. Fear of retribution. Fear of consequences.
After 1945 we learned what we'd failed to absorb after 1865.
Bill Sherman said "Fear is the beginning of wisdom".
But for those who choose never to be wise, fear is, at least, the beginning of silence.
In my personal opinion? The best silence for these people is the silence of the grave. As Stalin was wont to say, if people are the problem? No people, no problem.
But I will take living but fearful silence if that's the best we can get from them.
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