The latest trend in mainstream commentary is 'meeting them where they are, no matter what'. The most prominent in this practice is Ezra Klein:
"Much of what I would describe as Kirk's worst moments were now just standard fair MAGA Republicanism. And the leader of MAGA Republicanism is the President of the United States...we are going to have to live here with each other believing what we believe. Disagreeing in the ways we disagree."
"All I can say for me in the work I do is that I want to create a space that takes our disagreements seriously, that takes the stakes of them seriously, the consequences for people seriously, but does so without deepening our divisions irreparably. We are going to have to live here with each other."
Klein is just one voice of compromise among the folks who are publicly wondering just who they have to throw under the bus to have the smallest shift in political outcomes. There's also a governor who puts more respect on a hatemonger than his own citizens who have the temerity to be homeless or trans.
Then there's the failed presidential candidate who is more than ready to destroy the lives of trans children.
This is the call coming from the Democrats' department of strategists that have failed to get anyone elected.
What Klein is saying (in a perfectly overproduced video) is that he does not give a shit about anything. Nothing "means" anything. Politics is just a content trigger to write a column. Because he's reached a level of wealth and comfort where everything is just abstract fun. Like a board game.
[...]
They [transgender people and migrants of color] can disagree while being put in camps or being denied healthcare, a home, safety or anything. Nothing that will effect Klein of course.
He doesn't live "within" a political system. He plays a boardgame. And would rather keep playing even if the other guy cheats sometimes.
From a tactics perspective, this non-response from Democrats and their would-be advisors is total nonsense, of course.
It's even worse than bad political strategy. It's a waste of power and opportunity. If you are male, cis, and white-passing you have privilege. That is privilege you should use. Especially if you are someone who has a platform like Ezra Klein or Adam Jentleson, then you can do a thing that all those people of color, LGBTQ+, and disadvantaged people can't. Klein is willing to bargain away those people's interests (and arguably their lives). That's not what he should be doing with his platform.
He should get mad.
People who don't fall nicely into the "default" "person" in America don't really get the opportunity to get mad. Our culture and media landscape won't allow for that. Ta-Nehisi Coates must be calm, complex and detailed in his response. We know what happens to non-white, non-straight, or non-male people who get mad. They get dismissed. American culture recasts them so they aren't an angry person. They're showing that they represent an angry class of people, their critics will point to them and say 'this isn't an angry lady arguing for survival, this is proof that all women are angry, too emotional to be able to say anything of value'.
When they get angry it's because they're all angry. They are uncivilized. That their lives are at stake is no excuse to be upset. That's not how we do things here. We must respect the debate.
BULLSHIT. Every time people get reduced to their type that way, it's offensive.
Yet, that's how it works. Not just today, or yesterday, but for years, decades, centuries.
On the other hand, when Charlie Kirk gets angry that's debate. When Greg Gutfeld gets mad it's winning. He's nuking that lady, he's owning college students, he's taking on the losers. He's 'flinging her into the sun'.
You see it again and again. When we hear about getting mad, the default gets a privilege. When a white (or white-passing) man gets mad it is percieved by the media to be important. There must be a notable reason that man is getting angry and it must be worth exploring and debating. This is the pattern the far-right of American politics has taken advantage of for years. All while the Democratic party pretends being the statesmen in the room is wining some spiritual victory; one that will manifest itself into political power.
Fuck. That.
I want Ezra Klein to get mad. The most basic defense of our friends and fellow Americans, who don't get to play the default man, that he can accomplish is to get mad on their behalf. It is the literal least you can do. You don't have to register for a protest, or donate money, or run a political slush fund. Are you a white cis straight man in America? Your super power is that you can get mad. You want a democracy? You want to keep little children out of fucking concentration camps they're building across the American South? You want to survive goddamn America long enough to see 2030?! YOU NEED TO GET MAD!!!
I am not here to tell you that America is the perfect political project with a clean slate of history to stand on. America is violent and dirty and has a history shot full of tragedy, abuse and discontent. Every major change in America from the Revolutionary War to this moment is sitting next to a stack of white men getting so fucking furious. Often at losing. This is not to discount the tremendous and historical work of every justifiably angry person who isn't a straight white man and managed to bend history to the force of their will. Some of their anger may have manifested itself in peaceful protest but for every peaceful protest movement, violence threatened in the background. They did things that no white dude would have done and made things happen that could never have happened if we let only people who look like me stay in charge.
It fucking sucks that this is how politics works in America. It SUCKS so much. Wouldn't it be so damn awesome to live in a world where people with all the power had nothing asked of them. Wouldn't it be so fucking nice to be able to chill and relax. Wouldn't it be so much easier to lean forward into an overpriced microphone and stare into the camera like you're making a shitty documentary about yourself and tell people that 'you need to remain calm', that we should respect and honor a shitty dude. A shitty dude who got mad and told everyone that they should not respect anyone who isn't like him. After all, you look like him don't you? There's no stakes here as far as you can see from your perch on top of what is surely an ugly-as-sin thousand dollar bar stool. They're out there calling their enemies the antichrist and implying they should be subject to a holy war but that's not you, you're calm. You're So Fucking Calm.
These are the people who want to claim the title of the opposition to Trump. Just speak into the microphone calmly and recite the talking points you wrote down the night before. Just start a podcast and invite Charlie Kirk on to tell him he's convinced you that the welfare of trans people isn't worth protecting. Have a nice conversation with a dapper Nazi. Isn't their anger so interesting. Isn't it so fascinating that they're not calm like you. Look at them get mad from the other side of the telescope and tell yourself that's why you'll win. Because you keep calm and carry on. Just look at how great the UK is doing. What absolute great men they were. Real role models the British Empire, that's what you tell yourself. You keep telling yourself that as MAGA wins Congress, as they turn the Supreme Court around. Look, let us be sensible; abortion rights will be here forever. No, whoops, I guess not. Well I'm sure the next thing will sensibly be here forever. We're calm, they're the mad ones.
You keep congratulating yourself as they take over the government. As they destroy vaccination. As they put the people you don't understand or really like into camps. You'll show up calmly to answer the door when they get mad enough to figure out how to deport you. You'll calmly put your hands out. You'll calmly get handcuffed. You'll calmly walk to the police car, and walk to the camp. Then one day you'll calmly wake up and calmly walk to the execution squad. So calm. So sure that victory will just come to you if you remain calm.
I see you Ezra Klein. You think you pass. You think you're separate, above, powerful. But Klein... you're a Jew like me. One day they'll revoke your whiteness just like they've done over and over again to our ancestors every time they ran out of other people to blame. One day the clock will run out on your privilege because you refused to use it in the most basic, important, way available to you. You didn't get mad. You didn't tell people that they should be mad. You didn't show people, through getting mad, that something is badly wrong. That things are not carrying on. That we can't survive without getting mad.
You failed to get mad enough to tell them that these people who would gladly have signed up to the Nazi party, some of whom have thrown a Heil RECENTLY, are NOT OK. They SHOULD NOT BE IN POWER.
YOU DIDN'T GET MAD. If everyone follows your shitty example I'll be dead in some small way it will be because of you. Just like the dead children shot in schools across America, just like the trans people and the immigrants and the homeless who are dead already. They all—just a little bit—will weigh on your soul because you told people to stay calm and not speak with the fucking strength necessary to protect them.
One day people will look back at this period in history, if we don't burn ourselves off the planet first, pretending climate change doesn't exist in the hope that wins us the fucking House. When those people look back they will remember that there were people who stood by and said nothing. Who stood with the enemies of America. Who promoted the people who called for death, destruction, disorder, and the end of what remained of America out of some misguided shitty politeness power trip. You fucking collaborator.
I'm so tired of this bullshit. I'm so tired of hearing this bullshit from people who should know better. I'm not asking you to do much of anything. I wish you would. I want you to actually make use of your significant resources. But I'm asking you to consider doing the absolute least you could do. It could do more than you think. You don't have to donate money, or start a political party, or take any real action at all. You just have to Get Mad.
I
WANT
YOU
TO
GET
MAD