The piece by Amy McCarthy begins by painting a bleak picture of Trump’s America that’s quickly headed toward the dystopian future depicted in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a country where children have been separated from their families at the southern border and where mass shootings dominate the news.
“Moderates everywhere still insist that being nice to your racist, Trump-supporting relatives at the Thanksgiving table is somehow going to be the balm that prevents us from ending up in Margaret Atwood’s Gilead,” begins McCarthy. “That assessment is, frankly, a steaming pile of bulls**t.”
“There is no amount of civility that can balance the harm of xenophobic nationalism, and no amount of sitting silently while listening to someone spew racial epithets that will repair what Trump and his ilk have broken,” she exclaims. “Being progressive doesn’t just mean clicking ‘like’ on left-leaning Facebook statuses. It requires a commitment to pursuing justice, even when it’s your weird uncle, even when it’s uncomfortable, and especially when there are other people in the room who you care about.”
“You can’t just sit there and pretend that the people in your family didn’t play some role in getting to where we are today,” she argues. “For that temporary peace during dinner, you trade an opportunity to make a space you occupy safer for everyone.” – READ MORE