"You Fucking Children"

“London Review of Books: Is this how democracy dies?

“But in reality their behaviour too reflected their basic trust in the political system with which they were ostensibly so disgusted, because they believed that it was still capable of protecting them from the consequences of their choice. It is sometimes said that Trump appeals to his supporters because he represents the authoritarian father figure who they want to shield them from all the bad people out there making their lives hell. That can’t be right: Trump is a child, the most childish politician I have encountered in my lifetime. The parent in this relationship is the American state itself, which allows the voters to throw a tantrum and join forces with the worst behaved kid in the class, safe in the knowledge that the grown-ups will always be there to pick up the pieces.

“This is the most incisive piece of criticism on voter psychology I’ve read since the election. It expresses so much of what I’ve felt but haven’t been able to put into words, and it targets a deep, deep resentment I have about all the activism I’m doing – I didn’t make this mess but I’ve got to turn over my life and my sanity to trying to clean it up because who the fuck else is going to do it?

“I bet there’s actually a pretty large chunk of Trump supporters who would actually prefer not to have a bunch of neo-Nazis cozying up to power, but are they freaked out about it? No, and why should they be? It’s not their responsibility to reign in their President-elect; the same sliver of over-sensitive, politically correct, over-educated group of engaged people, the same ones who are always protesting and sharing articles on Facebook and donating to political causes – those are the ones who are going to days of their lives to making phone calls and nights of sleep to worry and stress; they’re the ones who are going to donate money they don’t have to the ACLU; they’re the ones who are going to spend all their energy flinging themselves against the system, trying to keep it from running completely off the rails.

“And when they succeed, and things are a tiny bit less worse than we were afraid it would be, all those non-voters and smug Trump voters will look at us smugly and say, see? I told you it wasn’t going to be fascism. You’re always overreacting. Boo hoo!

Fuck you, you fucking children. I wish with all my heart I could stand back and watch you experience the consequence of your terrible decision, except-as is the case with so many terrible decisions made by white people–the problem is that you’ve set it up so that a whole lot of innocent people will get hurt worse than you.”

Source: I still wake up and remember who is the President-elect | MetaFilter


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