A Surviving Facts Blog
This past week, with Kirk’s tragic murder and its sad, complex aftermath, has worn me out. Kirk is a victim. And so are all the transgender people who have been harmed by his defamatory, and false, rhetoric.
Is being tired a medical condition? I am tired. I’m tired of conflict, divide, crisis, pain. We live in a world where these states of being in response to political turmoil have been normalized. Gone are the times when I felt proud of my country— an attitude that now seems shockingly naive and unaware. Now, every day is a gut punch of terror— another school shooting, another mistaken deportation, another woman dead from a miscarriage not provided necessary medical intervention.
Lately, the rhetoric is twisted and bizarre— based on absurd lies. It’s fact: far right Republicans have committed far more hate crimes and violent acts than any trans person singularly or as a group ever has. Turn on the news, and we hear otherwise.
This is clearly not a message to come together despite differences. Rather, the message has been clear: only the right are victims; the left be damned.
Several studies, including one reported by The Conversation, detail that right wing violence is far more prevalent than left wing violence. In addition, attacks on LGBTQ individuals have been perpetuated overwhelmingly by far right extremists. Why do we not hear these facts, a question I seem to be asking a lot these days? Because, contrary to the claim of “liberal media,” our mainstream media has become state controlled, owned and silenced by far right billionaires who have traded accurate news reporting for Trump cronyism.
Following Kirk’s assassination, bipartisan efforts are moving to make political-based violence a hate crime. I’m behind this decision, but I have to speak the unspoken: will this legislation be applied equally to right and left?
Trump calls the “radical left” “vicious.” “They are evil, hawrable” [phonetic spelling intended], he says. When asked to tone down his divisive rhetoric, he said, basically, and I paraphrase, “yeah, sure, people are bad on both sides, but not like the radical left. They are evil.”
In my mind, violence is violence, and one’s political affiliation does not minimize or excuse it. This is not the environment we find ourselves in. When the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Boogaloo Bois escape retribution for breaking and entering a Federal building, murdering Capitol Hill police officers— including stomping on the head of one so fiercely that he had a stroke— defacating on the floor of the Federal building and laughing at the fear of survivors, our political system is no longer democratic. We are now a Nazi-style propaganda machine protecting the voice of thugs and billionaires over other people. From Michigan to Utah to Florida, the far right defines itself as victims, incessantly pestered by an imaginary left. The left is referred to as “they,” which is never defined. I have yet to hear a far right leader questioning their accountability for the present conflicts.
In the past, political debates always balanced the perspective with supporting facts of some kind. No longer. Politics today is an old, front-wheel-drive car in snow. The back wheels spin, believing they control the car’s direction. Front-wheel traction is necessary to prevent spinning out and to pull forward. But the front wheels can hardly clutch the firmer surface while the back wheels careen the car side to side.
On some days, I want to be the front wheels pulling the blind believer to solid ground. On other days, I watch the spin, mouth agape, terrified. Today, I see neither the triumph of constitutional intention nor a shift toward balance.
I want more— from all of us. I want a world of excavation and examination, of challenge and debate, of citing and sources. Instead, T.S. Eliot’s famous poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” keeps playing through my head:
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Eliot wrote this poem during a time of tremendous upheaval. Perhaps that is why I am recalling it after studying it over 30 years ago. World War I would soon start, and the world would fragment and take sides much as we are today.
The “overwhelming question” Eliot refers to is with us today. Will we make it through? Will we come together in the streets? Will we question our collective intent? Put extremism behind us, clasp hands and claim this place in time as one of mutual respect, forgiveness and rebuilding?
I don’t know. In my mind, I continue to quote Eliot:
I grow old… I grow old.
I would love to hear from you, even if, especially if, you disagree. Perhaps we can bring back the American tradition of debate. Please like and share this blog with others. Subscribe to receive it by email and go directly to the Walk the Moon website (www.walk-the-moon.com) to peruse the full collection of articles and updates. You can email me from the Walk the Moon website as well.
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