Some Thoughts On Division

 

I like Rev. Rafael Warnock a lot. He’s the pastor of a famous church in Atlanta and one of Georgia’s two senators in DC. But I just saw something he’s supposed to have said that troubles me. He said the MAGA idiots, my phrase not his, are trying to divide us so they can rule us. I have two problems with putting the problem we face that way. First, we’re already divided and have been for decades. The divisions have gotten sharper perhaps, though they were awfully sharp during the civil rights struggle and the Vietnam war. Trump certainly does want us divided, and he does everything he can to keep us divided. But he doesn’t have to try to divide us. That’s already done.

Second, I don’t want to be united with MAGA, I want MAGA and its fascist ideology destroyed and driven out of American life. Nonviolently, as I always think I have to say, but destroyed and driven out nonetheless. What would it even mean for me to be united with the likes of Donald Trump and his ill-intentioned, incompetent hangers on? I’m sure I don’t know. I suppose I could, at some level at least, respect people who see things differently than I do. I don’t despise Carolyn Eslick though I think her politics are all wrong. But, as far as I  know, Carolyn’s not a fascist. Donald Trump is. All of supporters either are fascists themselves or are willing to sit on their asses while Trump takes the country fascist; and I want nothing whatsoever positive to do with them. I want them crushed, I sure as hell don’t want them to become my allies or I theirs. I will not compromise with fascism, and I will not respect fascists or those who, for whatever reasons, could do something to stop fascism but don’t.

So yes, Trump works to keep us divided, but that isn’t hard. We were already divided when he found us. And at least in today’s America, division isn’t the problem. The fascism of one side of the divide is the problem. Perhaps we could regain what looked more like unity at times in the past, though this country was never all that unified except perhaps in World Wars I and II. But that unity will be bought at an astronomically high price if it doesn’t come in large part through destruction of the MAGA movement and the utter disgrace of Donald Trump.