Republican Governor Cox recently implored people to seek unity instead of pointing fingers, departing from the message his party has been pushing for the last week over the murder of Charlie Kirk. And while it’s a good message, it’s not landing with anyone. For the right it’s not landing because their leaders refuse to try, instead doing everything they can to blame left wing ideology and trans people and anyone else they hate. Meanwhile, the right wing commentators on BNR cannot even bring themselves to condemn political violence when it happens, such as the assault on a man who disrespected Kirk at a vigil.
For the left, the problem isn’t that they cannot unite. The problem is that they do not want to. And frankly, I don’t blame them.
Many of us in the USA no longer share the same values. A cult has grown who values power over humanity, hate over empathy, money over health, and victory over success. And this cult is taking the entire nation down with it. If the options are to either agree with the cult and their warped values, or fight them and deny unity, then the choice to deny unity makes sense.
I’m going to outline what I find to be the biggest barriers to unity. I implore especially the right wing members of this forum to really take a moment and try to understand why the left does not want to be united with you anymore. And I also invite you to civilly and respectfully outline, either in an OP of your own or in the comments, what makes you not want to unite with the left.
In no particular order:
The Left does not want unity with the Right because:
The Right Seems No Longer Concerned With Victims Of Tyranny And War Crimes
The strangest thing I’ve seen in this era is the support for Russia in their attacks on Ukraine, the support of tyrants in China and North Korea, and the support of the war criminals in Israel. It’s as if they looked at every corrupt and tyrannical leader and decided that they’d just only support those people, no matter what they do. Putin is a totalitarian dictator who has his troops invade nations and commit war crimes, including rape and kidnapping children. Un and Xi are dictators for life who their leader admires more than he would a civil rights leader in the USA. And Netanyahu is a corrupt war criminal who is overseeing what more and more experts are finally admitting is a genocide, complete with almost daily war crimes from his IDF.
Republicans not only support these worst examples of political leaders, they also denigrate their victims. They call the leader of Ukraine, a Jewish man, a Nazi supporter. They call the people of Gaza, who are mostly under 18 and haven’t had a day in their lives where they were free of Hamas or had the chance to, and have lived under Israeli occupation their entire lives, and see their families in the West Bank assaulted and their houses stolen, terrorists. Even children being murdered is celebrated by the right wing as if they were terrorists.
That alone is enough to make someone like me never want unity with people who think, support, and act like that.
The Right Wants To Punish Entire Populations For The Actions Of A Few
They seem to prefer simplistic discrimination to nuanced understanding. Whether it’s the aforementioned civilians in Gaza, asylum seekers in the USA, or even just a liberal online, Right winger’s views on the entire population is shaped by their judgement of the worst of their number. They applaud the death of Gazan civilians because some Gazans are Hamas. They demonize all asylum seekers and yes, even undocumented immigrants, because they pretend they are all violent criminals (while ignoring that the crime rate for local Americans is far higher). And if any dumbshit leftist online posts something stupid, it’s suddenly what they believe the entire left wing believes.
They don’t seem to understand that there is variation in groups. They don’t do nuance. Anyone who isn’t directly and constantly decrying the actions of a few people with remotely related characteristics is a radical leftist, a lover of illegal immigration, or a terrorist supporter.
And I don’t see why anyone would want to unify with that.
The Right Are Terrified Of Intelligence And Knowledge
The sheer anger that Republicans have against educational institutions is baffling to most. They see it not as places where people learn more about the world, each other, and pick up valuable critical thinking skills, but rather indoctrination centers for liberal belief. But I’m not sure what belief they are talking about. Respect for other’s cultures? A deeper understanding of things like gender and ideology? An unbiased look at criminal behavior and what might cause that and perpetuate it? A critical look at religious fanaticism and other forms of simplistic traditionalism? All of those might be true to a degree, but why in the world would they be against that?
It seems like what makes the right angry is that there is so much learned in school and universities that it makes the simplistic and unnuanced answers of the right wing so obviously laughable. People will challenge tradition for tradition’s sake. They will look critically at authoritative bodies. They will see the data on supply side economics, cultural melting pots, and figure out quickly that letting people be gay won’t destroy the fabric of society.
On top of that, the right is livid whenever anyone points out that the things they learned in elementary school was not the full story of the topic. They pretend everything worth knowing was known by the time they made it to middle school. This is why they are actually angered when people explain that sex isn’t that simple, that gender is a real thing, the man-made climate change is happening, and that labor abuses do not lead to a good economy.
And I don’t really want unity with people who consider knowledge and intelligence to be threats.
The Right Refuses To Condemn Political Violence When Their Side Does It, And Even Mocks And Celebrates The Atacks
The sheer number of high level republicans who cheered the assault on Paul Pelosi speaks volumes. As does their silence on the murder of Mellisa Hortman and her husband. As does their support for the violent insurrectionists who attacked the US capitol on January 6th and assaulted police officers while chanting for the death of Congresspersons and even the Vice President of their own party. And on BNR itself, the fact that 500 comments and over 20 well known conservative CMs couldn’t bring themselves to condemn an mob assault on a person for an expression of free speech cemented the fact for me that if it’s in their favor, the right does not care about political violence.
Anyone who is unable to be this absolute baseline level of human is not someone I want to be unified with.
Even when it’s pointed out to them that the vast majority of political violence is committed by their ideological brethren, they refuse to even look at the evidence. Which brings us to
The Right Lives In A World Untethered To Evidence, Proof Or Facts
I cannot even count the number of times I’ve taken the time to research, collect and present facts about topics to right wingers. And almost to the last, not one of them can handle the facts presented. Quality of life being poorer in Red States? Denial. Red States being the vast recipients of welfare? Denial. Overrepresentation of Republican run cities on the most violent cities list? Denial. The aforementioned political violence rates? Denial and plenty of attacks on my character for daring to present the facts.
It’s not like these are just opinions. You can cite sources, show study after study, take on their arguments and show the flaws or fallacies, nothing you do matters because they will not care. Facts do not form their reality; their reality forms new “facts” that have no basis in the real world.
It’s even worse when you talk about people they hate, like trans persons. Point out to them that there is no proof of athletic advantage, and they lose their shit. Show the vast variation of human genetics, and they freak out. Point out the huge variability in athletic skill among the entire spectrum, and they cannot wrap their heads around women being better than them in any category. It’s a weird world they live in, because they have a belief and it doesn’t matter that it’s not remotely true.
And it’s really hard to seek unity with people like that, who refuse to even use the same facts and invent so many of their own.
The Right Promotes People Of The Lowest Moral Character
The Right celebrates the worst human qualities we know. If you asked children to point to the characteristics of a Saturday morning cartoon villain, you’d hear things like bully, polluter, doesn’t like people who are different, always angry, and hates helping people. And then you look at the heroes of the right wing and see exactly those qualities. Trump is the epitome of that, but he’s hardly alone. Even someone like Charlie Kirk, who in my opinion was one of the least bad ones, had several moments where he decried civil rights, told women to not get educated and be subservient instead, and made a hell of a lot of racist and anti LGBT remarks. He wasn’t an angry bully, and he talked a good game about engaging, but he might have been the least objectionable thought leader of the whole movement. Most of the high profile Republicans are vile, like MTG (consistent bullying and abuse), Matt Gaetz (underage sex trafficking), Roy Moore (multiple sexual assaults), Lauren Boebert (extremist anti-LGBT rhetoric), Steve King (White supremacist), etc etc etc the list goes on an on. Not only are those people tolerate, they are celebrated, not despite of what they do, but because of it.
How do you unite with that? Why would you want to?
Conclusion
There’s was a time we understood that we could decry a position or philosophy while still expecting a person capable of change. And in order to unite, you have to be willing to give up the things that push us apart. If we want to unite, that’s the only path forward. If the right cannot give up on the things above, then there is no reason to want a union with them. This isn’t about policy. This is about character and value. It cannot continue like this.
