Time Locked
Every few days, it's impossible not to think about the years between 2014 and 2017. The protest tactics of BLM, the efforts to de-platform bigots of every variety, to shame them, their associates and financial backers out of public life, the American variation of antifa. All being referred to then as "too extreme."
These are called back to mind when looking at what's happening today. Texas is trying to steal children from loving homes because they are trans, and separately attempting to criminalize abortion. Florida is outlawing the existence of gay youths by simply criminalizing a self referential use of the word "gay" in any school context. Voting rights are once agin proving to not be rights in the eyes of people with the power to enforce those beliefs. A state has just introduced legislation to criminalize interstate travel for women who happen to be pregnant. Numerous states are criminalizing teachers who introduce material about and/or not written by people who aren't both white and straight. There are attempts to criminalize material in schools which "make white people uncomfortable." This is the stated purpose of these pieces of legislation, by the people introducing and supporting them, not an editorialized description. They’ve said it, outright. Some of them include it in the language of the bills. At the same time, the President of the United States, the leader of the political party which puts itself forward as the only possible opposition to the movement producing the legislation mentioned, just gave a State of the Union declaring police need more funding, despite all the good research available demonstrating policing does not stop crime or violence, and the evidence of our theory of policing and punishment resulting in a never ending stream of death and dehumanization. It would be one thing to say, "We're not sure what to do." This would be understandable. Instead though, this is a declaration of intent to keep doing what has been clearly established as failing its stated purpose, while creating more death and dehumanization.
A day or two ago, the New York Times published a piece by a conservative college student, opining about the expression of opposition to her views making her uncomfortable, which is, of course, a threat to free speech. The picture run with this piece, was of this student standing in front of the statue where more than a hundred Neo Nazis and white supremacists attacked a handful of students and college staff, in the midst of their torchlight march across the same campus, where they chanted, "Jews will not replace us," in 2017. It wasn’t even a full five years ago when the country was shocked by video and photos.
Looking back from 2014 to the present, many of the people and organizations pushing and supporting vilely bigoted and destructive legislation have spent these years declaring the superiority of Vladimir Putin’s leadership. Not least among the reasons they’ve given is Putin’s institution of law and use of law enforcement directly meant to oppress and persecute people who are LGBTQ+. To say his popularity with the far right internationally hasn’t helped embolden Putin, is akin to saying defending people who were outing trans students on college campuses in 2015 hasn’t contributed to Texas bigots being emboldened to criminalize parents recognize their children’s emotional and psychological needs.
The phrase, “Doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting different results is the definition of insanity” seems ever present, meant to be a kind of advice or admonition to individuals. Collectively, we’re just doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results, but we call it practical. It's not though, is it? It's being locked in time, to a set of ideas and perspectives which are failing, at an increasingly rapid rate. "Progress," the practical say, "is slow." De-evolution, anti-progress obviously isn't. Eight years, from 2014 to 2022, and we're seeing variations of legislation which would have been at home in the 1950's introduced, and passing their legislatures. "Too extreme," they said. "Progress will come," they said.
Instead we're seeing a masked, but still obvious attempt to roll back seventy years of civil rights victories for everyone who doesn't fit with the Ozzy and Harriet/Father Knows Best overlay. Anything which wouldn't have been acceptable on TV in the 1950's isn't acceptable. Now though, the laugh track isn't the valium induced, disembodied oddity it used to be. The laughter behind the "triggered" memes, "fuck your feelings," "I refuse to live in fear," "let's go Brandon" crowd is unmistakably that of "Don't you know your place, boy?", the "You're a little light in the loafers to be acting like such a big man," or "What are you gonna do about it, sissie?" It's the sound of the laughter so many women have heard when one in a group of men catcalls her on the street, and the whole bunch find her obvious discomfort hilarious, spurring the loud mouth to keep going. The phrases change. The particular nature of the laughter doesn't.
"Too extreme," they said, but we're all locked in time together, a socio-political Groundhog's Day. A cycle of bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, fear of the other.