In commemoration of the upcoming Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV), President Joe Biden issued a statement praising trans people’s contributions to society and describing actions his administration has taken to counter transphobic bullying and extremism. Additionally, many members of Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) also issued their own statements affirming that community health depends on supporting trans people too.
“Transgender Americans are part of the fabric of our Nation,” Biden wrote in his statement. “Whether serving their communities or in the military, raising families or running businesses, they help America thrive. They deserve, and are entitled to, the same rights and freedoms as every other American, including the most fundamental freedom to be their true selves.”
Hmm. I do agree, the pledge of allegiance is really weird and fascistic. And you do have a point on the violence.
I suppose I typically see the violence as needing to be more pervasive, like how Trump supporters send death threats to judges and political opponents and the whole Jan 6 thing. But throughout our history, we have had violent intimidation of oppositional political figures.
I think I wouldn’t call the US fascist because it isn’t significantly pervasive, but I completely see your point, and I don’t begrudge you identifying it as fascist. I certainly see why you think that and I can’t disagree beyond semantics.
Fair enough. Personally, I do begrudge you not using the term Fascist because I think if more people used that term to refer to our government, more people would be rightfully angry. It is alarming and scary to me that people are not seeing this country for what it is. Words have power.
I think the people we’d need to convince aren’t going to be swayed by the terminology. You need to get the middle rightfully angry, and what we learned from Vietnam is that you need to show them examples of the atrocities.
Use both. I don’t see any reason to mince words.