on the creation of artificial enemies

==Don’t do it!==

That should be all I have to say. Unfortunately it’s not though because it keeps happening. Actually it seems to be all the rage and a necessary part of our political hellscape. Again, ==don’t do it.== It’s not worth selling your soul for the sake of othering someone into oblivion.

What do I mean by this?

I think the modern origins are rooted in the religious right’s bait and switch where they wanted to protect segregated schools but needed a more palatable uniting issue: abortion.

In fact, it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools. So much for the new abolitionism. (from here which is a much more in depth look at the topic)

Through a lot of behind the scenes machinations and manipulations, it did become a uniting topic. The HIV crisis created another easy enemy to unite against: the lgbt+ community.

These twin enemies have lasted a long time (unfortunately) but the tide began turning, especially in regards to the lgbt+ community. Something new was needed so enter critical race theory stage right. Kind of. Here’s what actually happened:

• Fragile white folks started sending Christopher Rufo excerpts of DEI training.
• He noticed a lot of the popular modern works referenced a small set of legal theorists who called their work “critical race theory”.
• He went on to claim it could be traced back to radical marxist critical-theory texts (even though the authors claimed this wasn’t true)
• ""‘Critical race theory’ is the perfect villain,” Rufo wrote” (from the article)
• He started talking it up everywhere (like Tucker Carlson’s show)
• BAM! The far right had a new enemy that 99% couldn’t define and didn’t understand (other than thru an “enemy” framework).

This lasted a few years but fizzled some (personally I think it was too academic for an anti-intellectual crowd) so they settled on appropriating a word from black culture: “woke”.

Over the last few years, “trans” has been added to the enemy list. The far right claims all sorts of off base and unfactual things (all while their religious leaders are convicted of far worse).

Oh and John Oliver shared a new one growing in popularity this past Sunday: migrant crime.

So what’s the very real problem with doing politics by manufacturing enemies? Real people get real hurt. There is no way to do this without throwing someone under a bus.

Take the migrant crime issue mentioned above. It started by a video clip shared online of a fight between police and some people and later, video of a guy flipping off the camera as he leaves jail (supposedly in defiance of the system cause he beat some cops). The problem is that when the full video came out it was seen that the police got violent first, none of the people involved were actually migrants, and the guy giving the bird to the camera wasn’t even involved but detained for a couple of days (just because he, uh, fit a profile). Later video video showed a vigilante group attacking someone they thought looked like a migrant because of that; the dude didn’t even do anything wrong. A whole new enemy created under false pretenses, harming those it used.

It happened again today with boxing in the olympics. Some people jumped at the opportunity to attack the trans community because an Algerian woman, who is definitely not trans and was definitely born a woman, may have broke the nose of another boxer. To note: the Algerian woman is not trans and is representing a nation where being trans is illegal; she’s also lost to many women but that’s neither here nor there. And as the article makes clear the other boxer isn’t making salacious claims. It’s just political opportunists using this woman as a scapegoat to further their agenda, with no concern for her wellbeing or life (remember: it’s illegal in Algeria - if someone takes the twitter talking heads seriously she could face serious trouble).

Being trans isn’t actually the issue (they wouldn’t attack a cis woman if it was). Being a migrant isn’t actually the issue similarly. Going back further, abortion isn’t actually the issue (if it was policies like healthcare that actually lowered abortion rates would be in place). The actual issue is the need of a political enemy and scapegoats to sacrifice as the enemy.

We as people should be better than this. It’s the epitome of demonic. ==Don’t. Do. It!==

Have a thought? Or comment? Reply on Mastodon!