rethinking deradicalization
this is not a post calling for unity. if you read this post and come away thinking i want the united states to come together, i have failed at communication.
i have spent much of the last year traveling some of the reddest parts of the united states. i am trans. i pass pretty well. i am white. this has given me the ability to navigate these worlds in a way that helped me see a lot of what's going on in a way others... can't.
i travel for a lot of reasons. i think it's important to see how climate change is affecting areas i haven't lived in. i have random impulses to climb trees and mountains. i feel unsafe in general due to domestic violence.
but a huge part of why i travel is i think it's crucial to know people.
choice blindness is a real thing. post-hoc justification of many of the decisions we make is necessary when there are simply so many decisions to make each day. and this is part of our attitude formation.
if we look at attitude formation in the narrow lens of attitudes towards trans folks, we see that the more queer folks you know, the more likely you are to better understand and support trans folks. This has been validated in Portugal and Spain.
abigail thorne's most recent video (at time of writing) discusses the information silos we find ourselves in as things become more and more divided. but, the trouble i have with reducing this discussion to online news and media is that it discounts the lived reality of huge swathes of america...
and their offline lives.
it's easy to think everyone has the same resources, now that the internet exists. to think we're on an equal playing field in that way. but we're not.
before shifting to traveling, i lived in rural wisconsin. the county and village i lived in leaned right, but not heavily. politics were complicated. it's difficult to deny climate change as a farmer. but at the same time, it's difficult to feel like both parties aren't trying to use you for a photo op and then leave you in the dirt once they're elected.
everyone claims to care about farmers while getting elected. but once they're elected, they only care about conagra. midwest politics are complicated. anyone who tells you different is lying. obviously, politics are complicated everywhere. but they're messy in the midwest.
i regularly had to interact with open trump supporters to survive. i'm legally blind. i can't drive. my direct neighbor was fighting cancer. he was a vietnam vet. he was a huge part of my support network. he wasn't a trump supporter. but the local caretaker was. they fought a lot over it. especially considering the caretaker only had insurance thanks to obamacare.
only half of the village where i lived had access to high-speed internet. we were also in a weird cellphone dead zone so landlines were common. we were lucky to have a small library, but most folks relied on things like cable news and radio for news coverage. our local county paper sometimes covered politics, but only in the most general sense.
one thing my neighbor told me was how he thought the internet and vietnam would change things. he thought that racism was behind us. he was exhausted and sickened seeing these things flare up again. he didn't understand how we were here again. he thought his kids and grand kids would have a better life than they do.
and that, that right there, is the heart of it-
life is hard.
life is hard in the city. but it's not easy anywhere. it's more expensive in a lot of ways to live in rural america. a lot of people told me i should just move. but i don't thrive in cities. they leech my soul.
my neighbor told me that he found trans coverage confusing once. but having met me, he kinda got it. despite mostly passing, he still had trouble with my pronouns from time to time – life sure is weird – but he always socially gendered me correctly. when we'd shoot the shit, we shot it like men. i felt safe with him. he wasn't a leftist by any means. he was a centrist who wanted the best for everyone and knew that he didn't know everything.
he had a bleeding heart.
my village was about 1000 folks. mostly white, with some latinx folks. it was racist. but it was racist in a very 00s way.
someone had put up a fuck biden sign at some point along the highway. it kept getting reported to the sheriffs by 'both sides of the aisle.' because there was still, in a lot of ways, that sense of needing to 'respect the office.'
most of the trump supporters weren't the ones you hear about. they weren't sure the election was fair, but not in a stop-the-steal kind of way. they voted for trump because they still believed in trickle-down economics and were struggling. because the southern strategy had worked on them. because their children were leaving and they'd have to sell the farm soon.
they didn't believe the lies we know are lies because they're stupid. they believed them because there's not enough time in the day to dismantle every fucking lie and even less time to do so with on low speed satellite internet.
they had shit to do. like figuring out how to keep the electric on.
it's easy to think about hate
about how 72 million americans today affirmed that i am not a person
but that's a trap
i know and have heard so many trump supporters say those things
so many of them are just avid racists
but it's important to understand that many of them are instead complicit
i do not say this to try and wash their hands of the real consequences of their actions
but it's important because we talk about deradicalization
and i think that's the wrong focus
we need to remember that the vast majority of trump supporters are not who we're sold on but folks trapped and scared – yes, with marginally more power and influence than many who will read this, but trapped and scared nevertheless
remembering that those who act to disenfranchise us, to bring about fascism are human, not monsters is necessary in dismantling the systems they enable
i am not asking anyone to try and reach out, to sway trump voters to the other side. but i do think that attempting to assume why they voted for trump, what they think, and what they believe is dangerous – and is more likely to push them towards radicalization
recognizing that those who voted for trump are human is the first step in recognizing how we move forward.
right now, what we need more than anything is community. we need to support each other. we are all struggling.
capitalism is killing us
check in on your neighbors. how are they doing? do you know? is it safe for you to find out?
do you have leftovers?
i promise you, someone in your area is food insecure.
hyperlocal solidarity as simple as knowing your neighbors and their struggles to figure out what you as a smaller community need and how you can do mutual aid on that level is super fucking powerful.
do you have narcan? epinephrine? albuterol? plan b? insulin? hrt?
it would be illegal for you to share, but letting others know you have them isn't!
you may feel alone but I promise you, no matter where you are, you aren't. but that other person feels just as alone as you.
if you can safely find a way to form community, that, in and of itself, is life saving. and it's where real politics starts.
my travel partner and i have been going through a hell of a chaos storm lately that's heavily impacted our finances. if this blog post gave you anything, please consider supporting us via our ko-fi. if you do, however, please only do so after first donating to someone else's request for mutual aid. thanks!