Maybe The Best Way To Oppose Fascism Is To Fucking Oppose It

Stop with the appeasement, you quisling motherfuckers.

Image: Michael Linnenbach, CC

Yesterday Maine joined Colorado in barring Trump from the primary ballot. The rationale is pretty simple. There’s overwhelming evidence that Trump tried on January 6 to overthrow the duly elected government and to prevent Joe Biden from becoming President. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution bars insurrectionists from running for President. Therefore, Trump is disqualified from appearing on the ballot, as surely as if he were under 35, or a naturalized rather than birthright citizen.

This provision of the Constitution makes a lot of sense. If someone has shown they will use high office to try to overthrow the government, they should be disqualified from high office. Trump tried to use his position as President to incite an insurrection. He has promised to rule as a “dictator” if reelected. The 14th Amendment could not be more relevant.

So if you oppose Trump, you should affirm that he committed insurrection, affirm our Constitution, and support banning that orange motherfucker from the ballot. Easy!

And yet. Across social media, smarter-than-thou pundits have stared at the Maine and Colorado rulings, accessed their inner Neville Chamberlain, and tied themselves in knots to genuflect before Trumpism while simultaneously tearing out what we must laughingly refer to as their own spines.

The reliably gelatinous Damon Linker set the tone, whining that

Unless SCOTUS strikes down Colorado and Maine, we will end up in a situation where judges and election officials all over the country begin disqualifying candidates for any number of reasons. We will find ourselves unable to hold elections that most Americans consider legitimate.

Hey, newsflash Damon, you amnesiac toady, the Republican party already doesn’t consider any election legitimate if Trump loses!

Some Maine officials, like vacillating Republican Senator Susan Collins, furrowed their brows and insisted that we can’t follow the Constitution because Trumpists don’t like the Constitution, and we have to give fascists everything they want lest they do mean fascist stuff to us, amiright? She was joined by centrist Dem congressman and shithead Jared Golden, because of course she was.

A smaller social media account laid out the logic of blackmail and acquiescence explicitly:

It's of paramount importance that BOTH sides consider our elections legitimate. If one side doesn't, they might cling to the idea that an election was stolen despite all evidence, show up to polling stations with guns or even attack Congress when they're certifying an election.

Again, it’s worth pointing out that TRUMP’S SUPPORTERS HAVE ALREADY DONE THIS! THEY STAGED A FUCKING COUP! THAT’S WHY TRUMP SHOULDN’T BE ON THE FUCKING BALLOT, BECAUSE IF HE LOSES HE WILL TRY TO STAGE A FUCKING COUP! YOU CAN’T PREVENT HIM STAGING A FUCKING COUP BY GIVING HIM EVERYTHING HE WANTS BECAUSE WHAT HE WANTS IS POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND FUCKING COUPS UP TO HIS FUCKING UGLY WIG. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?

I don’t know how to put it any more clearly. "If trump is taken off the ballot his supporters will respond with violence" is literally saying the law is whatever fascists want it to be because you're afraid of them.

The Supreme Court is a Christofascist Trump-loving hive of authoritarian quislings, and they’ll almost certainly find some way to say that insurrection is totally cool when their buddy does it. But—and this is a key point—you don’t need to help Clarence Thomas and Sam “I love to torture women to death” Alito stab democracy through the fucking heart.

You don’t need to crawl on hands and knees to Trump, scraping your face raw and bloody in the hopes that he won’t be mean to you. Instead, you can use the court rulings to remind voters that yes, Trump committed insurrection, and yes, our Constitution frowns on that. You can tell coup plotters, fascists, and the rest of Trump’s MAGA horde of sycophants, bullies, and cowards that we are going to stand together for democracy, and we’re going to use whatever means are at our disposal to win. If you aren’t sure how, you can model yourself on Joe Biden, who actually gets it, for once!

This is an easy win. Trump’s a massive fascist pustule; each court ruling tossing him off the ballot is a news cycle about how he’s a massive fascist pustule. So help spread the message that he’s a massive fascist pustule! The alternative is to turn yourself into a fucking worm, squishing and sliding through Trump’s foetid orange leavings, aerating them and helping fascism grow. Don’t be that fucking worm.

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