The Right Loves Identity Politics
A 72 year old man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat at a Donald Trump rally was attacked with mace yesterday, the 44th day of said Orange Tyrant’s tenure as President of the United States. The picture of him rolling around on the ground in pain made the rounds on Twitter, and I’d imagine it still is making rounds, given how long all of us on the Left kept Richard Spencer getting a Nikki Bella forearm to the face going. Without context, an elderly man getting assaulted is no fun, but when one considers that he was attending a Trump event, an act of violence in and of itself*, and that he belligerently shouted “DO SOMETHING” before getting maced, well, one can see where folks might not want to feel sorry for the man.
To play Devil’s Advocate, this incident is exactly the kind of thing pearl-clutching liberals, whiny Rightist fuckbags, and I guess even “irony bros” who are so deep in the fade that they spew anti-Semitic slurs at Jewish people while wielding a Hitler Twitter avatar (but it’s okay, he’s IRONIC! he said while jacking his dick so hard he shaved off all the epidermis and left himself with awful penile burn) will claim the Nazi/White Nationalist wing of the Right can use to gain sympathy. The victim here, or at least the target of the attack, is an elderly man, the kinds of victims that awful predators stalk and assault as a measure of fear. And it’s true, people without spines prey on the old, just like that young lady who literally played the Knockout Game with an elderly Korean woman in Los Angeles while screaming “WHITE POWER!” Of course, the Korean woman was minding her own business, while the aged MAGA CHUD in question here literally went up to someone and said “DO SOMETHING” before being surprised that person, well, did something.
The problem is that those on the Left who are okay with the macing aren’t the ones falling into the trap; it’s the liberals and the easily duped Leftists, like the irony bro who may not be ironic** who are. You see, the Right is full of people who love to use the shroud of identity politics to their advantage. They see an incident like this, an instigator at an event designed to incite violence intentionally fomenting the attack against him designed to build sympathy for his grotesque cause by making people focus on his demographic rather than his intent and other contextual evidence. Attacking an ELDERLY person is ALWAYS WRONG, they shout, and people latch onto it, hook, line, and sinker.
Obviously, macing a random old person is wrong, but macing an old person who just happens to be imposing his presence in a way that suggests he might cause you physical harm is a much grayer area. The Right will suggest that bloodthirsty savages in the (So Much For The) Tolerant Left will assault old people willy-nilly for the sheer act of wearing a red, made-in-China MAGA hat, when that is in most cases false. But it doesn’t matter what intent is when you believe identity is a shield. Even worse, they’ll say that these horrific attacks will push them into committing similar attacks, ignoring the fact that as referenced in LA, they’re already happening and thus would be without any silent assent in tactic from the Left.
A wise friend of mine who has been trying to push me into anarchism and extreme leftism for, what, 18 years now (and finally succeeded in his own way even if we have disagreements) said that Richard Spencer and his ilk are so dangerous because he’s able to subvert the Left’s use of identity politics as a roadmap. They’ve been using these tactics for years, decades even. Black Republicans are trotted out as proof the Right isn’t racist. Even more recently, how could Milo Yiannopoulos be homophobic if he’s gay or anti-Semitic if he’s Jewish? (Even though he’s renounced Judaism and is a practicing Catholic now.) Or how could, sigh, GamerGate be a misogynistic crusade if WOMEN THEMSELVES were in the movement? The REAL bigots are the ones who are against Herman Cain and Ben Carson and Yiannopoulos and the anime Nazis hiding behind egg avatars. And now, those same oppressed groups are targets, painting the Left as the true evil. If both sides fought in the same way, this wouldn’t matter.
But as referenced by the Joy Reids and the Jeet Heers and the Todd Hitlers of the world, the Left, at least the more centrally located parts of it, are bound to a different code than the Right is. The Left must retain civility and “class,” and they are legislated to that code from both sides. Who the fuck are the people who voted in earnest for a monster or who believe unironically in ethnic cleansing to tell anyone how to behave? The moment you accept their rules to decorum is the moment you have lost any interest in getting justice, because civility in the service of a bigoted status quo is the most potent weapon against attaining justice. You then take on the shame you want the Right to feel about their blatant disrespect of demographics and internalize it so that you can make excuses to let awful people keep being antagonistic, corrosive, and predatory things because of who they are, because you’re afraid of your grandfather getting punched for “no reason.” And hell, if you condemn the MAGA Elder getting maced, then I guess Spencer or Mike Cernovich or [insert cishet male White Nationalist talking head here] need to be defended too. This is how society devolves. This is how marginalized people get herded through bottlenecks into a line of machine guns lined up in the clearing.
Identity politics are important inasmuch that several oppressed groups need their utilization to get a fucking seat at the table. But the moment you get so caught up in them that you think a bellicose git looking either to become a martyr or an assailant himself getting maced is the same as an innocent woman getting sucker punched by a MAGA CHUD screaming “White Power,” or worse, that that old fuckface getting maced will lead to someone like your grandfather or grandmother getting assaulted for no reason, then you fall into the trap. Don’t let civility become the enemy of justice. Know how the Right uses identity politics to manipulate people, and don’t let yourself become a victim of an endless feedback loop of guilt while the real enemy laughs as their avatar slashes benefits for yet another oppressed group of people.
*- A Trump rally is an act of violence because it’s people with privilege and in power holding an event to impose ominous will on people the Orange One is oppressing. It’s the same reason behind why Trump Cup or any other act of gloating by the empowered Right is literal violence; you don’t need to rub it in the faces of people who are gonna get fucked by Trump’s/the GOP’s malignant policies that they’re about to get fucked.
**- The user’s display name is “Todd Hitler.” He has a picture of Hitler as his avatar. He’s surprisingly sympathetic to MAGA CHUDs for someone of his “Leftist” pedigree. He has used anti-Semitic slurs against a Jewish member of Philly Sports Twitter, one whose bona fides as a decent person are without question. After he replied to me, no fewer than three anime Nazis/Kekistanians flocked to come to his defense/attack me. But let’s chalk this up to “irony.” Right.
EDITED TO ADD:
LMAO all this shit over a Right wing asshole accidentally pepper-spraying another Right wing asshole. Fuck all this shit.
