Tennessee

Don't disenfranchise me.

It's one thing to make it harder to vote, it's quite another to cancel my vote completely and leave me without representation.

The day Trump got arraigned someone pointed me to the student protests in Nashville, how come they weren't all over the news instead of the Former Guy. Even worse, the main story on both the "New York Times" and "Washington Post" all day was about Biden and trans athletes. Important, but compared to what was happening in Tennessee, pretty miniscule.

Chalk another victory up for the right. We're discussing cultural issues instead of the real issues to the point that the supposed left-leaning media has taken the bait and is now down in the gutter arguing over these issues that affect almost nobody. Kind of like critical race theory, which wasn't even taught in schools other than colleges. Do you know any trans people? If you did, you'd back down. In the past they were tortured, on the verge of suicide until they could transition. At least now being trans is out in the open, so people can feel safe coming out. And that's a good thing. As for trans athletes... Ain't that America, where sports are king and politics is in the rearview mirror. Come on, there aren't that many trans athletes out there. Furthermore, you share a bathroom with your kids at home, how come they can't share a lavatory with trans kids at school. Where exactly is the danger? Turns out gay is not contagious. Gay couples have straight kids. You can have many gay friends and not end up gay. We've made progress here. Then again, the same people who got rid of abortion rights want to get rid of gay marriage, and so much more. But what are you gonna say when your daughter gets pregnant? I'm old enough to remember when abortion was illegal. People were forced to have babies they didn't want and even Catholic girls went underground and terminated pregnancies. How come everybody in America thinks it can't happen to them? I guarantee you you have a gay person in your extended family, and if you think you don't, they're just afraid to come out of the closet.

I mean they're poking us right in the eye. With not only abortion rights, but racism. The Tennessee House gets rid of two black people and keeps one white person? The optics are terrible, it's de facto racism!

Now reasonability had a victory this week, with the Supreme Court in Wisconsin. Turns out it's Gen-Z, the supposed nonvoters, who showed up and made the difference. Because it's their life and they're gonna be affected by this cockamamie rolling back of rights by old people who think they're immune, never mind being out of touch.

Tennessee keeps telling us it's up-to-date, hip, and then there's no action after a school shooting, in fact they wanted to liberalize gun laws at first, and now they're expelling three members of the House because... Protest in high school, leave the classroom, and they don't expel you, they suspend you, for a week at most.

And what is the appropriate conduct in a legislative body? Republicans keep shouting down Democratic speakers in the U.S. House and there are no consequences, but in the rinky-dink southern state House you should be afraid of the Republicans, they'll excise you. And the rules are vague, so there will be a chilling effect on behavior, talk about freedom of speech...

So I had a hard time with the election is stolen crap, but Biden took the office.

I had a hard time with the reduction of polling places, never mind the difficulty in registering to vote, but people still showed up.

But now? Eliminating voters' voice willy-nilly. This is too much, they've gone too far.

So at what point does the public react. And every poll says most people want abortions, never mind stricter gun laws. There are more of us than there are of them. But we're lazy, we think it's somebody else's problem, we don't do anything. Thank god for the kids, it always starts with the kids, they're pooh-poohed and marginalized, and then oldsters realize they're right.

So antisemitism is out of control. People are fearful of telling others they are Jewish. Do I really want to put a mezuzah on the door?

Are we just going to get rolled over, or are we gonna get up and fight?

The best thing I read all week is this in the "Los Angeles Times":

"Why do so many young white men in America find fascism 'cool'?": lat.ms/438btCB

Because people don't click through, let me quote some passages:

"The word 'fascism' is often thrown around loosely, and some may feel applying this label is overly dramatic. But its current manifestation in the U.S. mirrors its incarnation eras ago: an ideology that glorifies the traditional masculine, believes in a spiritual right to exact violence and calls for the seizure of government for authoritarian rule. The fascists are unified by their love of violence, their hatred of progress and their sinister sense of entitlement that declares that America belongs to them.

"Fascism feeds off culture wars, exploits psychological insecurities and uses deeply held resentments to convert the impressionable. At a time of intense polarization and cultural battles over race, gender and democracy, it's not surprising that fascism has found young adherents, this time as a lifestyle, with cosplay."

And:

"The Fascists, then and now, placed unique emphasis on propaganda. Indeed, at a meeting of radio broadcasters in Berlin in 1933, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, gave the state broadcasters some urgent advice: 'The first law is don't become boring!'"

"From the start, Fascism was focused on culture."

And:

"Today's fascists are malleable and take on different forms, some more racist than others, some more sexist. But they're drawn to the propaganda and symbols of racial and sexual brutality. For many young white men, fascism starts as a cultural identity, rather than as a political ideology."

Reading this piece changed my entire focus on the crisis in America. We've been fighting issue by issue, and that's a mistake. It's time to pull back the lens and see what is really going on, there's a rogue swath of Americans who feed on disinformation online, believe liberals are the enemy and will fight to the death. I know this if for no other reason I hear from them. Furthermore, you must toe the line. Like all those people who talked smack about Trump before he got elected, who are still paying fealty to him.

This is a battle for the soul of our country. And today's heinous expulsion truly does remind me of Nazi Germany. Specifically in that you think you're immune, and then they come for you. They chipped away at our rights. Now they're chipping away at our voice?

And too many people with a buck are afraid to take a side for fear of offending bad actors. But let's face it, they're complicit. How is it that Disney is doing a better job of pushing back against fascism in Florida than any celebrity? Once again, corporations are taking the lead, and that's just nuts. It's a nation of people. And let me tell you, AI ain't gonna fix this problem.

We can't debate what happened in the Tennessee House today. That would be missing the point. One party used its majority to not only ensure one party rule, but to silence the voice of the opposition, literally take away their voice. If this isn't indicative of a march to fascism, I don't know what is.

Want to talk about patriotism, believing in America?

Those who fight this outrageous behavior are the true patriots, even if they're not wearing flag pins. It's about what you think, what's inside, and if we don't step up and stop this tsunami...our rights are going to be swept away.

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