That was a tough read, Lyz, and thank you for your willingness to sit through something so demoralizing and hateful. Living in Colorado, I feel somewhat sheltered here, not that we don't have the right-wing fanatics here as well, but we also have a lot of middle-of-the-roaders (can there be such a thing in this day and age?) and solid progressives. And most everything you say about males in many of your postings I find to be true. Most of the circles I sit in are probably 80% female. "Where are the men?" I ask. Where indeed.
I often fret about how impossible it feels to reach these people, to heal this divide. But lately I've been realizing that they have never thought the same about us. We don't owe them any more hands outstretched in friendship, not when all we get back is a fist and a gloating, hateful laugh.
They've only tolerated us all these years because it wasn't safe to NOT tolerate us. Now the pandora's box of shit has opened, they can monster around to their heart's content.
You are absolutely correct. These people are like the cowards who lined up behind the bullies in middle school. Frightened, and with no power of their own. They do as they are told.
This. I'm so tired of hearing "we have to understand the other side" and then be the only one reaching out a hand. I do believe Dems and progressives have an indignation problem, so yeah, we could do better at sincerely wanting to reach out versus doing so because we think we're better, but I haven't been in a single convo with someone to my right that doesn't turn into me being a dartboard for their vitriol.
Rage is such a confusing soup of suck right now. Because half the time I can't tell how much of my rage is genuinely my own and how much is reactive, a manipulated response to the off-gassing of MAGA's nonsensical entitlement, which poses as rage but is not. It's like my rage is a clear channel that keeps getting fouled by toxic waste being spilled into it continually. If I let it in too much, it poisons me.
Fuckers are fouling even my rage. And I'm not sure if being protective of it is the answer, but I'm not sure what the answer is. Other than to turn the bulk of my attention to what and those I love. But then these assholes are just running amok. Thanks for keeping an eye on them, but also, FUCK. I feel like I need another shower.
Oh man, I get this. I think as hard as this is, you can't give them the satisfaction of outrage. These folks are humorless and humor seems to be the thing that is disarming.
Wow! Nothing in your story is that surprising, really, but it's still mind-boggling and terrifying. I have to admit to a certain amount of satisfaction at the incivility of the attendees, although again, not surprising. Your experience as what I would have thought was a "passing" though lukewarm Trump supporter makes me muse (for only a second) about how things would turn out for me, an older and obviously transgender woman, if I showed up at a Trump event wearing a hard-core pro-Trump T-shirt. Except for the imminent threat to life part, it might be fun to see people wrestling with how to react to me. Or not.
As an older trans woman, I hear you. There's part of me that would want to show up wearing a shirt that read, "Socialist Jewish Trans Woman". But the part of me that wants to continue breathing would override that urge.
Thanks for taking a bullet for the rest of us! I am so tired of the "men are lonely, men need help" bullshit! Help yourself fuckers! There was no complaining about this shit when men were solely in power and women were powerless!
If they weren't photoshopped, I've seen pictures of the event spelling Chuck's last name as "Grasley." So not even are they cruel, heartless, and vindictive; they can't even spell.
Same. And as beautifully written as it is - and it is so so good, Lyz - I cannot say that one damn syllable of it surprised me.
I’m tired of trying to go high when they go low, SO effing tired, but that’s how Combover Caligula operates, isn’t it? Supporter or opponent, he wants to grind you down until you’re so burned out and exhausted that you just give up, which is your punishment for not worshipping him or pretending to.
(I’ll go out on a limb and say I’m 100% positive you would have been treated better if you had a man with you. I don’t know that a ring would have even mattered.)
I live in NJ, so a much more liberal state, still i run into Maga once in a while. The few I encounter seem to be believe that anyone who disagrees is deranged and that we are libs who simply must be destroyed.
There is no equivalent in Democratic politics. Mikie Sherrill is my congresswoman and her recent campaign for the Dem nomination for governor had none of Maga anger.
I'm sorry (for real sorry) but there is absolutely an equivalent in Democratic politics. I'm in Texas and my community is suffering from this past weekend's flood tragedy and I have read a zillion comments in liberal online places that are just the worst stuff imaginable about how we deserved it. I'm constantly amazed at how people can believe they have the moral high ground when they are literally at that moment being The Worst, but it happens on both sides. This toxic shit infects everyone. Yet another reason it's critical not to elect leaders who spew it.
You are missing the point. The democratic pols don’t generally say much. And the NYT does not scream about how the stupid Texans did this to themsleves. The times did note that local authorities did study a warning system but elected not to do it b.c of costs. even MSNBC only talked about the warnijg system that was rejected but there was no headlining how stupid conservatives are. Nor to pastors up north say that the floods are god’s judgement. ….. Trump and the GOP are so ready to tell blue states how terrible we are. Even want to withhold money. Dens as a whole don’t do that - i cannot guarantee that there are no angry voices but i am generalizing.
I think the above commenter makes a good point worth listening too. And I do see this cruelty often reflected in Dem talking points like about Texas and the flooding or Iowa and the derecho. And also from political leaders about trans rights. And both Biden, Obama, and Harris ran on a platform of being tougher on immigration than their Republican opponents. I know we want to distance ourselves and that serves a good purpose, but we are all still people and there is cruelty everywhere in all our politics and in all of us.
I simply disagree. No that we are still people but that Dems in politics or that the MSM act at all like GOP pols do. And democratic rallies are not as crude and GOP rallies.
I dont mean to discount the crudeness overall but there is, I suggest, a distinct difference between the parties.
Thus whatever Obama and Biden may have said in campaigns about immigration, they did not send masked goons.
I was a registered GOP voter till 2017 so bristle at lots of Democratic stuff but I don't see them as remotely like what we see in the Trump presidency.
They did send masked goons. Obama personally oversaw 3 million deportations using ICE agents. Biden oversaw more deportations than Trump's first term. I am not saying this to say what is happening now isn't bad, just that there is cruelty and if we love our neighbors, we need to see it everywhere, even in ourselves. I understand you are bristling, but I hope this comments section can be a space of listening and understanding, not defensiveness. I am going to let that be the last word on this thread for the moment.
Yes, I think that’s important to point out. People are holding Obama in particular up as a saint, when in fact the Trump deportation campaign isn’t all that different or successful in terms of *numbers* as MAGA would have people believe.
What IS different: building concentration camps; revoking legal protection from thousands of people at a time; refusing due process as a blanket policy; extraordinary rendition; enlisting the Marines to help; creating a culture of not only fear but terror; all but deputizing everyday citizens; etc.
Immigrant advocacy groups absolutely talked about what Obama and Biden were doing when it was happening, but no one really listened. The political theater of cruelty now is much different (see above) but we shouldn’t pretend that immigration / deportation *policy* has been terribly different during any administration over the past 40 years (or even, really, the last 75 years). The last time immigrants were given even half a break was DACA and before that it was the amnesty under Reagan in 1986.
Be careful what you believe — some of these things are “written” by bots and trolls looking to get a rise out of people. Bots and trolls can’t show up at a rally.
I also live in Texas and, while I have absolutely dealt with Internet randos saying bullshit like this, with this week’s tragedy mist of those comments were placed by bot accounts and trolls pretending to be liberals, The most notable of these was an account called ‘Cindy Sheinberg’ featuring a photograph stolen from OnlyFans. Also, as others have noted, Dem officials don’t say the shit Trumpers do about our opponents. Trump this week announced that he hated Democrats. We would never have heard the end of it had Obama said anything half so hateful.
I'm going to leave a pointer to an article that I've revisited periodically over the years. https://eminism.org/blog/entry/148 I'm hesitant to summarize Ms. Koyama's writing, because she has a very particular voice and says what she says very well, but I think what she's getting at is: if progressives want a world with more progressives, they have to engage people who aren't progressive and engage them in a humane way.
But here's the question - why are they so angry since they won? What keeps fueling the anger? It has to just be the rhetoric both in media and from T's foul mouth but why do they fall for it?
I look at conservative media and I see many articles framed as if everyone is against them. An example is something in national review the other day that took an article in The NY Times that gave some negative history about Mamdani as if FINALLY. The Times prints the truth. But i read the Times every day (it is local for me) and almost until he won, Mamdani was considered a young upstart with no money and no chance. So the Time wrote about what you would expect. They also didn’t write much about Josh Gottheimer in the Dem primary. Josh was an also ran whose campaign faded. For the times they don’t use news as an excuse to put forth an agenda. But right wing media surely do.. and that is terrible for America. Their audience is in essence groomed.
Jersey girl here too and Gottheumer was my rep. Now at the Shore stuck with a Drew. Thing is I hear from MAGA all the time how the NYT lies except they still like to quote it out of context when it suits them based on whatever NewsMax says. The only to do is to fight like hell for NPR
Wow. I could barely read that. You captured the visceral feeling of being in a crowd of people who hate anyone who disagrees with them. Their gloating is very hard to take, along with the lying and willful ignorance, of course. Nauseating really. Thanks for going, I think?
There’s so much about this that’s stunning and disturbing. But what’s particularly startling to me is the incivility. I wonder, if you’d had a man with you, or been more blatantly Trump-y, if people would have been kinder? Meaning is there a high bar for conformity? Or are they all so full of rage that they can’t even be nice to each other. The latter I’m guessing, but either way, chilling. Thanks for this illuminating post —- and thanks for putting up with all that to bring it to us!!
It's a great question and one I kept asking myself. I work with a wonderful editor who keeps these newsletters short and readable. But I did have an aside that I later cut about bringing my old wedding ring as a cover, but I haven't worn it in 8 years so it got stuck on my finger and it was so tight I had to claw it off. So, maybe I'll try bringing a dude next time I go to one and compare and contrast.
I have a lab-produced opal ring which is very beautiful, also inexpensive. I wear it to work because I'm not risking my flawless diamond doing the job I do.
I would be interested in whether or not they're this rude to women who are alone but more obviously part of the cult? Because I honestly think it's because a woman alone is invisible to them, except that she should be polite to them no matter how rude they are to her.
Also, I wonder how many other people were there alone, and if that was the clue to them that said she didn't belong, or if they just expect women who don't appear to have a man or a family to take whatever rudeness men dish out to her without complaint.
Maybe a bit off-topic but this chair hoarding nonsense is one of (many) reasons why I hate our town's 4th of July celebrations. We have a parade and fireworks, and before both you will see places marked off with chairs, blankets, rope, and yellow DO NOT CROSS tape, letting everyone know a claim has been staked. It drives me crazy and speaks to this manufactured anxiety of scarcity in a time of abundance. The field is big enough for everyone. You can still get a good seat to watch the rolling commercial of small businesses if you show up ten minutes before it starts. I feel like this says so much about our country.
Oh dang, Lyz, you are indeed a hero for enduring this and eloquently writing about it. Spending time - volunteering to do so - in the midst of such hateful people is draining and demoralizing and you rose above it all.
That was a tough read, Lyz, and thank you for your willingness to sit through something so demoralizing and hateful. Living in Colorado, I feel somewhat sheltered here, not that we don't have the right-wing fanatics here as well, but we also have a lot of middle-of-the-roaders (can there be such a thing in this day and age?) and solid progressives. And most everything you say about males in many of your postings I find to be true. Most of the circles I sit in are probably 80% female. "Where are the men?" I ask. Where indeed.
this. in our local social justice work...where are the men? the elementary school sons of activists are the only men that regularly show
This is part of the reason women are so tired. Where are the men? Why are we always doing all of the work, even in allegedly progressive areas?
I often fret about how impossible it feels to reach these people, to heal this divide. But lately I've been realizing that they have never thought the same about us. We don't owe them any more hands outstretched in friendship, not when all we get back is a fist and a gloating, hateful laugh.
omg this. i try to find common ground but like...they literally scream that 11 year old children should self deport. there is no saving these people
They've only tolerated us all these years because it wasn't safe to NOT tolerate us. Now the pandora's box of shit has opened, they can monster around to their heart's content.
You are absolutely correct. These people are like the cowards who lined up behind the bullies in middle school. Frightened, and with no power of their own. They do as they are told.
This. I'm so tired of hearing "we have to understand the other side" and then be the only one reaching out a hand. I do believe Dems and progressives have an indignation problem, so yeah, we could do better at sincerely wanting to reach out versus doing so because we think we're better, but I haven't been in a single convo with someone to my right that doesn't turn into me being a dartboard for their vitriol.
"American democracy, sponsored by Lockheed Martin."
Says and explains so much.
Rage is such a confusing soup of suck right now. Because half the time I can't tell how much of my rage is genuinely my own and how much is reactive, a manipulated response to the off-gassing of MAGA's nonsensical entitlement, which poses as rage but is not. It's like my rage is a clear channel that keeps getting fouled by toxic waste being spilled into it continually. If I let it in too much, it poisons me.
Fuckers are fouling even my rage. And I'm not sure if being protective of it is the answer, but I'm not sure what the answer is. Other than to turn the bulk of my attention to what and those I love. But then these assholes are just running amok. Thanks for keeping an eye on them, but also, FUCK. I feel like I need another shower.
'nonsensical entitlement, which poses as rage but is not.' - THIS
Yes to all of this.
Oh man, I get this. I think as hard as this is, you can't give them the satisfaction of outrage. These folks are humorless and humor seems to be the thing that is disarming.
Selfish jerks the lot of them, just like their mendacious misogynist blowhard of a dictator.
Wow! Nothing in your story is that surprising, really, but it's still mind-boggling and terrifying. I have to admit to a certain amount of satisfaction at the incivility of the attendees, although again, not surprising. Your experience as what I would have thought was a "passing" though lukewarm Trump supporter makes me muse (for only a second) about how things would turn out for me, an older and obviously transgender woman, if I showed up at a Trump event wearing a hard-core pro-Trump T-shirt. Except for the imminent threat to life part, it might be fun to see people wrestling with how to react to me. Or not.
As an older trans woman, I hear you. There's part of me that would want to show up wearing a shirt that read, "Socialist Jewish Trans Woman". But the part of me that wants to continue breathing would override that urge.
OMG, seriously, you two. Don't even fantasize about that!
Don't worry. I have a lot to live for.
Are you familiar with Emi Koyama? This is how she does it: https://eminism.org/blog/entry/148
Please don't do that...
Thanks for taking a bullet for the rest of us! I am so tired of the "men are lonely, men need help" bullshit! Help yourself fuckers! There was no complaining about this shit when men were solely in power and women were powerless!
They're lonely because they're assholes.
What a sobering and sad read. It’s important for me to read stuff like this, to disabuse myself of the idea that the way of peace will be easy.
If they weren't photoshopped, I've seen pictures of the event spelling Chuck's last name as "Grasley." So not even are they cruel, heartless, and vindictive; they can't even spell.
Morans.
I had anxiety just reading that. I have no idea how you endured it at all.
Yes. I don’t think I could have stayed… even for science!!
Same. And as beautifully written as it is - and it is so so good, Lyz - I cannot say that one damn syllable of it surprised me.
I’m tired of trying to go high when they go low, SO effing tired, but that’s how Combover Caligula operates, isn’t it? Supporter or opponent, he wants to grind you down until you’re so burned out and exhausted that you just give up, which is your punishment for not worshipping him or pretending to.
(I’ll go out on a limb and say I’m 100% positive you would have been treated better if you had a man with you. I don’t know that a ring would have even mattered.)
I live in NJ, so a much more liberal state, still i run into Maga once in a while. The few I encounter seem to be believe that anyone who disagrees is deranged and that we are libs who simply must be destroyed.
There is no equivalent in Democratic politics. Mikie Sherrill is my congresswoman and her recent campaign for the Dem nomination for governor had none of Maga anger.
But angry MAGA is unreachable now.
I'm sorry (for real sorry) but there is absolutely an equivalent in Democratic politics. I'm in Texas and my community is suffering from this past weekend's flood tragedy and I have read a zillion comments in liberal online places that are just the worst stuff imaginable about how we deserved it. I'm constantly amazed at how people can believe they have the moral high ground when they are literally at that moment being The Worst, but it happens on both sides. This toxic shit infects everyone. Yet another reason it's critical not to elect leaders who spew it.
You are missing the point. The democratic pols don’t generally say much. And the NYT does not scream about how the stupid Texans did this to themsleves. The times did note that local authorities did study a warning system but elected not to do it b.c of costs. even MSNBC only talked about the warnijg system that was rejected but there was no headlining how stupid conservatives are. Nor to pastors up north say that the floods are god’s judgement. ….. Trump and the GOP are so ready to tell blue states how terrible we are. Even want to withhold money. Dens as a whole don’t do that - i cannot guarantee that there are no angry voices but i am generalizing.
I think the above commenter makes a good point worth listening too. And I do see this cruelty often reflected in Dem talking points like about Texas and the flooding or Iowa and the derecho. And also from political leaders about trans rights. And both Biden, Obama, and Harris ran on a platform of being tougher on immigration than their Republican opponents. I know we want to distance ourselves and that serves a good purpose, but we are all still people and there is cruelty everywhere in all our politics and in all of us.
I simply disagree. No that we are still people but that Dems in politics or that the MSM act at all like GOP pols do. And democratic rallies are not as crude and GOP rallies.
I dont mean to discount the crudeness overall but there is, I suggest, a distinct difference between the parties.
Thus whatever Obama and Biden may have said in campaigns about immigration, they did not send masked goons.
I was a registered GOP voter till 2017 so bristle at lots of Democratic stuff but I don't see them as remotely like what we see in the Trump presidency.
They did send masked goons. Obama personally oversaw 3 million deportations using ICE agents. Biden oversaw more deportations than Trump's first term. I am not saying this to say what is happening now isn't bad, just that there is cruelty and if we love our neighbors, we need to see it everywhere, even in ourselves. I understand you are bristling, but I hope this comments section can be a space of listening and understanding, not defensiveness. I am going to let that be the last word on this thread for the moment.
Yes, I think that’s important to point out. People are holding Obama in particular up as a saint, when in fact the Trump deportation campaign isn’t all that different or successful in terms of *numbers* as MAGA would have people believe.
What IS different: building concentration camps; revoking legal protection from thousands of people at a time; refusing due process as a blanket policy; extraordinary rendition; enlisting the Marines to help; creating a culture of not only fear but terror; all but deputizing everyday citizens; etc.
Immigrant advocacy groups absolutely talked about what Obama and Biden were doing when it was happening, but no one really listened. The political theater of cruelty now is much different (see above) but we shouldn’t pretend that immigration / deportation *policy* has been terribly different during any administration over the past 40 years (or even, really, the last 75 years). The last time immigrants were given even half a break was DACA and before that it was the amnesty under Reagan in 1986.
Be careful what you believe — some of these things are “written” by bots and trolls looking to get a rise out of people. Bots and trolls can’t show up at a rally.
I also live in Texas and, while I have absolutely dealt with Internet randos saying bullshit like this, with this week’s tragedy mist of those comments were placed by bot accounts and trolls pretending to be liberals, The most notable of these was an account called ‘Cindy Sheinberg’ featuring a photograph stolen from OnlyFans. Also, as others have noted, Dem officials don’t say the shit Trumpers do about our opponents. Trump this week announced that he hated Democrats. We would never have heard the end of it had Obama said anything half so hateful.
I'm going to leave a pointer to an article that I've revisited periodically over the years. https://eminism.org/blog/entry/148 I'm hesitant to summarize Ms. Koyama's writing, because she has a very particular voice and says what she says very well, but I think what she's getting at is: if progressives want a world with more progressives, they have to engage people who aren't progressive and engage them in a humane way.
But here's the question - why are they so angry since they won? What keeps fueling the anger? It has to just be the rhetoric both in media and from T's foul mouth but why do they fall for it?
I look at conservative media and I see many articles framed as if everyone is against them. An example is something in national review the other day that took an article in The NY Times that gave some negative history about Mamdani as if FINALLY. The Times prints the truth. But i read the Times every day (it is local for me) and almost until he won, Mamdani was considered a young upstart with no money and no chance. So the Time wrote about what you would expect. They also didn’t write much about Josh Gottheimer in the Dem primary. Josh was an also ran whose campaign faded. For the times they don’t use news as an excuse to put forth an agenda. But right wing media surely do.. and that is terrible for America. Their audience is in essence groomed.
I think they have nothing else.
They can’t back down/change their minds/admit anything so they have to stick with rage.
Trump is in charge of everything and everything is still Biden’s fault.
Jersey girl here too and Gottheumer was my rep. Now at the Shore stuck with a Drew. Thing is I hear from MAGA all the time how the NYT lies except they still like to quote it out of context when it suits them based on whatever NewsMax says. The only to do is to fight like hell for NPR
I was still surprised how Gottheiner faded. I think he would have been fine.
Wow. I could barely read that. You captured the visceral feeling of being in a crowd of people who hate anyone who disagrees with them. Their gloating is very hard to take, along with the lying and willful ignorance, of course. Nauseating really. Thanks for going, I think?
Thanks for going so your subscribers don't have to.
There’s so much about this that’s stunning and disturbing. But what’s particularly startling to me is the incivility. I wonder, if you’d had a man with you, or been more blatantly Trump-y, if people would have been kinder? Meaning is there a high bar for conformity? Or are they all so full of rage that they can’t even be nice to each other. The latter I’m guessing, but either way, chilling. Thanks for this illuminating post —- and thanks for putting up with all that to bring it to us!!
Good question.
It's a great question and one I kept asking myself. I work with a wonderful editor who keeps these newsletters short and readable. But I did have an aside that I later cut about bringing my old wedding ring as a cover, but I haven't worn it in 8 years so it got stuck on my finger and it was so tight I had to claw it off. So, maybe I'll try bringing a dude next time I go to one and compare and contrast.
I have a lab-produced opal ring which is very beautiful, also inexpensive. I wear it to work because I'm not risking my flawless diamond doing the job I do.
hand lotion works for tight rings!
Dish soap too!
I would be interested in whether or not they're this rude to women who are alone but more obviously part of the cult? Because I honestly think it's because a woman alone is invisible to them, except that she should be polite to them no matter how rude they are to her.
Also, I wonder how many other people were there alone, and if that was the clue to them that said she didn't belong, or if they just expect women who don't appear to have a man or a family to take whatever rudeness men dish out to her without complaint.
Maybe a bit off-topic but this chair hoarding nonsense is one of (many) reasons why I hate our town's 4th of July celebrations. We have a parade and fireworks, and before both you will see places marked off with chairs, blankets, rope, and yellow DO NOT CROSS tape, letting everyone know a claim has been staked. It drives me crazy and speaks to this manufactured anxiety of scarcity in a time of abundance. The field is big enough for everyone. You can still get a good seat to watch the rolling commercial of small businesses if you show up ten minutes before it starts. I feel like this says so much about our country.
"manufactured anxiety of scarcity in a time of abundance" 100% well put
This is exactly it. As if we aren't the wealthiest nation in the world. As if we don't have enough to share.
Do you live in Catonsville, Maryland??? The chairs go out the week before the parade!! 😂
Oh dang, Lyz, you are indeed a hero for enduring this and eloquently writing about it. Spending time - volunteering to do so - in the midst of such hateful people is draining and demoralizing and you rose above it all.
Well, I am doing it for my book research, so don't get too invested in my goodness here.