Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Privilege.]

"I actually like [Donald Trump's] candor... There's something so refreshing about shaking up that world that is all about being handled and here comes this loose cannon who has terrible ideas and would be a horrible president, but there's something great about his 'I-don't-give-a-shit' attitude that really kind of keeps others honest. I think it's a surprise benefit to the country, actually. I hope he stays in for a long, long time. And just collapses that whole tent of his."—Actor Bryan Cranston, talking about the horrendo garbage nightmare that is Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

Listen, y'all know I love me some Cranston, but NOPE.

And I don't want to singularly pick on Cranston; I chose this quote because it's emblematic of similar sentiments I've seen being expressed by lots of people, who are mostly straight white cis men.

I get, really I do, the urge to believe that Trump's bombastic bigotry will implode the Republican Party, but that ain't gonna happen. What will happen is that Trump will just further entrench the despicable narrative that rank prejudice is merely "truth-telling," and not a highly subjective personal opinion with zero basis in fact and unadorned by the merest shred of decency. What will happen is that Trump will make an increasingly extreme Republican Party platform seem reasonable by comparison.

And, in the meantime, all the putrid bias he disgorges under the banner of "telling it like it is" will blow back on the marginalized people who are his targets.

It isn't straight white cis men at whose expense comes Donald Trump's controversial contemptible rhetoric about women, people of color, immigrants, and others (not mutually exclusive groups).

Professing delight at being able to sit back and laugh at Trump's campaign is indicative of profound privilege which has not been subjected to the most cursory examination.

I wish these mirthful progressives would try to spend two fucking seconds imagining what's it like to be the target of this swill, which is indeed representative of views lots of our fellow countrypeople hold about us—and act on—and see if maybe the joke doesn't seem so goddamn funny anymore.