Othering is a tried and true practice, not only in America, of course, but you gotta admit, we’ve had a lot of practice. And I don’t mean just the big examples that predate the revolution and became a calling card of colonialism, the ones designed to dehumanize people enough to justify genocide and a novel form of chattel slavery. Both of which we’re instrumental to the economic development of the United States of America. Oops, I’m sorry, yes, talking about American history can be heavy at times; that’s why we can’t teach it to the children. Anyway, throughout our history, to a lesser degree, we’ve ‘othered’ various groups numerous times, usually immigrants, and almost exclusively, people who are not considered to be white. Of course, who gets to be considered white has changed over time. For example, I happen to be of Italian descent, and my father, who was born in 1936, was of the first generation of Italian-Americans who were considered to be ‘white’ by most of American society. That’s what’s interesting about what seems to be happening right now in the minds of tens of millions of MAGA supporters. They appear to be othering a wide swath of their fellow natural-born citizens, whom they consider to be white allies of the immigrants and minorities whom they have already othered. That’s kind of new, for us anyway. White allies have been vilified throughout our history, many have been assassinated, but what’s happening now seems to be on a whole new level. One that, if left unchecked, could drastically expand the widespread violence we’re already seeing.
I don’t know how else to interpret recent events and the reaction of the MAGA base any other way. The acceptance of what’s happening in Minnesota is kind of a paradigm shift. An unarmed American-born white woman, Renee Good, was murdered in front of the nation, and it appears that there are tens of millions of Americans who think it was justified. They believe that she was part of some shadowy left-wing group of paid agitators that threatens America. And that the people in Minnesota (Yes, that Minnesota! Are you kidding me?) who are running out of their homes to protect their neighbors are actually violent insurrectionists. Unfortunately, the friendly Minnesotans just an hour away from the Twin Cities, in MAGA country where it’s 115% white, are also buying into this fantasy. Sounds like science fiction, right? I wish it were.
They are being goaded by our President, who said that Renee Good was disrespectful. (Does that language sound familiar?) Our Vice President said she was deranged. The Secretary of Homeland Security said she was a domestic terrorist. The FBI is investigating her widow to find out what kind of ties they had with anti-American organizations. And now, the President of the United States is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act while some in his administration are calling the leaders of Minnesota traitors for not squashing a rebellion led by paid agitators and violent insurrectionists. And all of this is being amplified by a well-funded and sophisticated propaganda apparatus across an endless array of right-wing outlets designed to rile up the MAGA base. If that outrages you, congratulations, you’re normal. You’ve also been othered, because you are now subscribing to a dangerous mentality that, in the minds of tens of millions of your fellow citizens, disqualifies you from the constitutional rights afforded to citizens and non-citizens alike.
This quote, often attributed to Holocaust survivor Karl Stojka, has been making the circuit lately:
“And people did this, just like you, you and me. These people did not come from another planet. They were human beings, just like us. And it was not Hitler who arrested me, not Goering, not Goebbels. The grocer, the janitor, the tailor, the shoemaker, the baker, they suddenly got a uniform, a swastika armband, and there they were, the master race…”
By the way, I find myself saying this all the time now: if you don’t want to be compared to Nazis, don’t do Nazi stuff. These comparisons are perfectly valid now.
Anyway, it’s obvious that the men given an ICE uniform, or any of the DHS uniforms, have already dehumanized immigrants and people of color. It’s also obvious that millions of our fellow citizens have done the same. That’s crystal clear. No empathetic person could accept what is happening to the people who are being racially profiled and harassed in the streets, and pulled out of their cars and their homes, kidnapped and thrown into concentration camps, without first dehumanizing them and deciding that they aren’t deserving of basic human rights. Due process is constitutionally afforded to everyone on American soil, regardless of their citizenship status. Period. If someone doesn’t understand this, then they must not want to understand it. And, yes, calling these detention centers concentration camps is appropriate; they fit the internationally recognized legal definition. Any facility depriving people of due process and access to legal representation is considered a concentration camp. So let’s not get our undies in a bunch about using terms associated with Nazis. Like I said, if you don’t want to be compared to Nazis, don’t do Nazi stuff. Treating anyone this way is unconstitutional and immoral, but it’s also something we’ve done far too often.
Now I get the MAGA agenda. They are rushing to lock in their burgeoning dictatorship. To achieve this, they need two things. They need to desensitize us to violence, and they need an enemy. But more than that, they need enough of the population to believe in that enemy. And right now, that population consists of the 70-80 million people who voted for Trump, who seem to be largely standing by him. I actually don’t know the exact number. Is it only 30 – 40 million that still buy into this? Is it 100 million, counting those who don’t vote but do accept this? Are there even more who recognize what is happening but will never have the courage to stand up to it? Hoping that it won’t eventually come for them? I honestly don’t know. But it’s enough, for now, for the MAGA regime to complete its mission to have a police state in place by Summer. So in this moment, Stojka’s quote is quite relevant, only it isn’t just those willing to put on the uniform, but it’s also those willing to let it happen. The people terrorizing us may not be the shoemaker or the janitor or the baker, per se, but those accepting this, defending this, certainly are. They’re the ones making it possible by believing in nonsense and giving cover to the regime. None of this madness would be possible without their support.
And maybe this is a good time to clarify who the latest enemy is, just in case I didn’t state it obviously enough. If you’re reading me, then it’s probably you (but please don’t use that as an excuse to stop reading me, and it probably won’t help anyway). Anyone who isn’t part of, or accepting of, the MAGA agenda has to be the enemy now. That’s the shift that just occurred with the killing of Renee Good. She isn’t the first person to be killed by ICE since they donned masks and invaded our cities, but she is the first white American-born citizen to be killed. And in a manner so blatantly illegal that it boggles the mind that there are tens of millions of MAGA supporters who are willing to accept it. We’re used to seeing them be accepting of degrading immigrants and people of color, but now they’re being conditioned to view anyone who isn’t MAGA as the other. And that is also an earmark of an authoritarian regime. They always need an enemy within, and they always need to expand that enemy. As M. Gessen, the Russian-born author who has written extensively on authoritarian regimes, recently said in an interview with Ezra Klein:
“They always designate an enemy within. Trump did it as soon as he assumed office. His main enemies within were immigrants — and protesters. But the number of the enemy then has to expand constantly. Because that’s the only way that you can wage war continuously. The war needs to escalate.”
And that’s what we have in front of us. This is where the MAGA regime has brought us. And that’s probably because more than at any time in American history, people who have been raised to consider themselves to be white have decided that “We the People” means everyone. That’s why the backlash is so strong, and since there are more of us than them, this worldview can’t be tolerated anymore. We’re too dangerous to the MAGA regime’s desire to rule. And that’s why their language has shifted lately. Telling their base that everyone supporting immigrants must be paid agitators, or communists, or American-hating lefties. Or that DEI is destroying America. All of this rhetoric seems to be successfully ‘othering’ a wide swath of ‘white’ America in the minds of a significant part of the population. The MAGA base has been conditioned by what has turned out to be a highly effective propaganda apparatus that relentlessly feeds them disinformation. And now we have tens of millions of people who have ceased to see a large part of their fellow citizens as being worthy of the same rights as they are. As people who violence can be thrust upon with impunity. And this time it’s not based on skin color, or religion, or immigration status, all the things we’re used to, it’s just based simply on who the MAGA regime is telling their base is the latest enemy.
We have a history that, at times, has been so violent that we can’t teach the children about it. But then, we also have moments when we overcame those times and made a better world. We achieved amazing gains in women’s rights, equal rights, indigenous rights, labor rights, environmental rights. All the stuff that made this country something we could be proud of, and not coincidentally, everything the MAGA regime despises. That’s why they’re conditioning their base to accept violence against their neighbors, or anyone, who can’t and won’t accept losing ground on our hard-fought rights.
This will undoubtedly go down as one of the darker times in our history, but there are more of us than them. There are more of us who want to realize the promise of the meaning of ‘We the People’ than those who want to tear it down. Remember that. And remember that this is one of those moments in history that future generations will ask, what did you do? That’s a good question. In the same interview with Klein, Gessen said this:
“I talk about this a lot when I do public speaking, and people ask me: What should we do? And I say: Well, do something. Because whatever you can do today, you’re not going to be able to do tomorrow. So act where you can act.”