Time to Take a Stand

If big numbers did vote for him on that reason then there's a cancer running deep in USA's society that trying to brush under the rug isn't really going to help.

"You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue."

- [1] http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h...

What that even means? A 30 years old PhD student researching quantum computing was barred from entering the U.S. You broad brush painted him too.

But let's not forget that Spencer and various members of his social circle have - for years now - been expressing approval for ethnic cleansing and even straight-up genocide. Some people say that the solution to objectionable speech is more speech, but that's an easy stand to take when you're not one of the people who should be 'ovened' in alt-right parlance. Oh sure, they're just expressing their dislike and probably don't have an actual to plan to construct ovens and shove people into them, but this is not the sort of joke whose punchline I care to passively wait around for.

When people are promoting genocidal ideas and attempting to normalize them as political discourse, they are themselves engaged in political violence, notwithstanding that it's indirect incitement rather than active commission. If you've ever been the target of gang violence than you may have experienced the phenomenon of a smart person calling the shots, while bigger and less cerebral types do the actual punching and kicking. That's why, if you find yourself cornered by a gang, you should focus your attentions on the guy at the back rather than the toughs in the front.

It's true that not everyone who voted for Trump is a bigot. But they were OK with voting for one, weren't they? The longer someone makes excuses for this sort of thing, the more responsibility one takes on for it. You say you're worried about the rhetoric from the left, but it's Trump who has been going about expressing a desire to use nuclear weapons, punish women who have abortions, muzzle the press, demean women and so on.

I am absolutely not going to apologize for being against such statements or moderate my condemnation of them. If you let those things slide by saying 'it's just Trump being Trump' or whatever, then you're making excuses for the systematic intimidation of large social groups. Why would you want to normalize such behavior? Why does open opposition to that bother you?