I am being absolutely serious here with the Weimar Republic comparison. Because people are fucking miserable and it’s fucking terrifying.
A hundred years ago, broke people in big cities would go to fascist rallies because they were free, and because sometimes the organizers gave out free food and beer, and because people had nothing better to do.
And they stayed because hate feels good when you’re hurting and simple violent solutions appeal to the angry monkey parts of our brains.
And the fewer community connections you have - the more the economy strips your life down to work and sleep, or to job hunting and sleep, or to scrounging in the gutter to survive and sleep, and the less you go out and socialize with actual human beings - the more appealing the fascist illusion of unity, of being part of a powerful group, becomes.
And the only difference today is that the fascist rallies are beamed directly into your home.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
-LBJ
And it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about different races, different sexualities, attached vs detached earlobes, whatever. Point to a group and tell everyone “They’re the problem” and you’re going to have an automatic following.
And that includes cishetero white men. Lots of cishetero white men out there struggling like everyone else, and to be told that they’re the oppressors because they look the same as most of the oppressors, kinda leaves no room for class solidarity.
I’m not saying that’s the only problem or even the biggest problem, but it is a problem, and it seems to be the only one we’re not allowed to talk about.
Everyone loves to hate on cishetero white men. Why don’t we all just hate on billionaire oligarchs and corrupt politicians instead? That seems to transcend race, gender, and sexuality. If you don’t believe me, look at Clarence Thomas, Kristi Noem, Peter Thiel, and Caitlyn Jenner.
Being a minority does not automatically make one a good person or immune from accountability. And being a majority doesn’t automatically make someone a bad person, or prejudiced, hateful, bigoted, or intolerant. There’s nuance to everything.
Racism is bad, period. But not every white person is a racist, and not every racist is white. The same applies to all the other intersections.
We really need to stop oversimplifying the problems and solutions, because it’s the same tactic and the same trap that the fascists use. We need to be better than the fascists, not fight fascism with fascism. Hate begets hate.
Gender war, race war, sexuality war: it’s all a distraction from the class war. Let’s not fall for it.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
We should use mass AI propaganda to direct all our hate to an imaginary group of people that don’t actually exist, and are distinct enough that no living human could ever be mistaken for one of them. Like, let’s just invent an entirely new racial phenotype from whole cloth, with unique physical features no one has. And then just create a storm of AI stories, images, and videos of these evil bastards doing all sorts of heinous things. All of humanity can unite behind hating a group of people that don’t actually exist.
If we’re going to live in a post-truth dystopia, let’s try using it for good for once.