And it walks, talks, and acts like it
The America right has long harbored a soft-focused yearning for the good old days when white men were dominant, women were docile homemakers, the “negroes” knew their place, cars had no seat belts, and TVs were black-and-white and topped with “rabbit ears.”
I’ve been thinking regularly about the sign above. After the Roe decision, American women had reason to think their reproduction was their business. Now that Roe has been overturned by the Roberts court, the left might be tempted to view the intervening years with nostalgia similar to the right’s 1950s fantasy.
The postwar years in general look like the good old days now that the world is again fighting fascism. The sign above has so many applications.
View on Threads
Melissa Ryan considers the Trump administration’s open xenophobia and racism and recalls a time when Americans frowned on anyone who expressed theirs publicly:
For me, the most troubling aspect of Trump’s attacks on Somali-Americans is how acceptable it’s become for the president of the United States and members of Congress to speak this way, and how much we’ve desensitized ourselves to it. There used to be a political cost for racist rhetoric and words intended to incite. I think a lot about former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s resignation in 2002 over divisive remarks praising Strom Thurmond and how his words cost him one of the most powerful roles in Congress. And on Bluesky, writer Jamelle Bouie made the point that even President Richard Nixon, who certainly held racist views, knew that it wasn’t acceptable to air them publicly or from the White House. This kind of rhetoric was considered unacceptable for decades, but since the emergence of Donald Trump as a candidate, that’s changed.
It’s not that Trump or his supporters being racist is new or shocking. It’s the amount of power they’ve amassed and how comfortable they are with attacking entire communities with incitement that will result in threats and violence. Instead of being shamed, Trump and MAGA are routinely rewarded for the hate, harassment, and harm they spread, with little concern for the people and communities who bear the brunt of the constant abuse.
Ah, the good old days of Nixon.
There was a time in this country
Paul Krugman fondly recalls a time when America stood for freedom:
There was a time, not so long ago, when America was the leader of the free world. It was the first among equals within an alliance of nations bound together by shared values — above all a commitment to democracy and civil liberties. From London to Berlin to Tokyo, in the aftermath of genocide and the utter devastation of World War II, America – as Ronald Reagan put it – was the shining city on the hill. We should never forget that Americans played the pivotal roles in the Nuremberg trials, upholding the rule of law in an impartial and transparent manner in the trials of those who had committed unspeakable atrocities and acts of war. “Ich bin ein Berliner,” declared John F. Kennedy in Berlin, as East Germany tried to trap its own people behind the Berlin Wall.
MAGA, however, doesn’t want to be part of that world. In fact, it doesn’t want a world of democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law to exist. The Trump administration has become especially hostile to Europe, precisely because the Europeans are trying to hold on to the values MAGA is trying to destroy at home.
[…]
The language is astonishing. Europe, the document warns, faces “the stark prospect of civilizational erasure.” Why? Because “it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European.” I don’t know why they bothered with the euphemism: “non-European” clearly means “nonwhite.”
Conservatives (before they self-radicalized) have been gnawing perceived threats nonwhite to their “civilization” like an old bone for decades. They once urged Europeans to fuck their way out of civilizational erasure.
I wrote this in response to Mark Steyn’s “It’s the Demography, Stupid” in the Wall Street Journal back in 2006:
… the Christian world risks being eventually overrun because of “our lack of civilizational confidence.” (The cure for which is, no doubt, civilizational Viagra.) Americans are not afraid enough of the urgent threat posed by Muslim children and must retaliate by stockpiling more of our own.
To plagiarize a quote from a review of one of nuclear-alarmist Jonathan Schell’s old books, “I shudder to think how I’ve failed. I shudder for Mark Steyn, for all the time he’s spent banging away at his typewriter instead of banging away elsewhere.”
But when they’re not banging away to fill their quivers these days, Trump, MAGA, and Christian white nationalists have decided to screw Europeans. If they won’t defend their civilization against the nonwhite hordes, why should we? America first!
“Europe is much closer to being Reagan’s shining city on the hill than Trump’s America,” Krugman acknowledges. It faces a threat from its own resurgent neo-fascist political parties:
Yet, on the whole, Europe is dealing with its economic and social strains without giving up on its core values. For example, the recent Dutch elections, while not a decisive victory for the center, did at least push the far right out of government.
And America itself is not yet lost. Many, and I believe most, Americans still believe in our foundational values of freedom and democracy. For the time being power lies in the hands of people who hate those foundational values — and hate Europe because it still clings to those values. But we can still turn this around and claw our way back to being who we should be.
I get the nostalgia. I can’t believe we still have to protest this fascist shit either.
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Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?
No King’s One Million Rising movement
50501
May Day Strong
Freedom Over Fascism Toolkit
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense