Thomas Zimmer
We need to trust our eyes.
Nazi salutes, racist purges, an ambush on the Ukrainian president by a far-right regime. If what we see aligns with what we know and is also in line with an established track record, our default assumption should be that what is happening is actually what it looks like.
Thomas Zimmer
In every single interview I’ve done since Friday, I have been asked some version of: “But couldn’t this perhaps somehow *not* be what it looks like if we stipulate that Trump and Vance are not who they have repeatedly proven they are?”
I really wish we could stop doing this.
Thomas Zimmer
But the thing is: When the guy who rose to political prominence as the birther-in-chief took over the GOP as he was raging against the first Black president, and when he was re-elected after the most aggressively racist major-party campaign in modern history, that was mostly what it looked like.
Thomas Zimmer
I am not even talking about straight-up rightwing propaganda. I mean the pervasive tendency in the mainstream political discourse and in polite society to look for ways to sanitize what is happening, to come up with ways to make it seem “respectable” or “reasonable” or “normal.”
Thomas Zimmer
When Elon Musk and leading figures on the Trumpist right – people who have a long track record of racist, eugenicist positions, who have been propagating extremist conspiracy theories – repeatedly greet adoring crowds with Nazi salutes, that is exactly what it looks like.
Thomas Zimmer
When the Trumpist regime purges women and people of color from all the major institutions and all positions of influence and power, declaring their presence fundamentally illegitimate, all under the banner of “meritocracy” and fighting back against “DEI,” it’s exactly what it looks like.
Thomas Zimmer
When a bunch of rightwing extremists marched in Charlottesville yelling “Jews will not replace us,” waving swastika and confederate battle flags, and they all put their hopes in Donald Trump who declared there were actually some “fine people” among them, that was what it looked like.
Thomas Zimmer
I am not telling you there is no need for nuance and complex analysis. The above is indeed not the be-all and end-all of our situation.
But too often, the polite discourse isn’t actually looking for nuance, it demands we sanitize and obscure. It’s a big reason why we got here. It needs to stop.
Thomas Zimmer
And when Donald Trump, who has very consistently sided with Putin and foreign autocrats, and JD Vance, who channels the broader NatCon, nativist, and ethno-nationalist desire for a new world order, try to publicly humiliate and delegitimize Zelensky, it is pretty much exactly what it looks like.
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