This story starts with a #janeworldproblem
that would surely make Roseanne Barr think I deserve whatever abuse I’ve
gotten, but nonetheless: On my way to my monthly get-the-Trump-out massage
appointment on Saturday, I got triggered by one of my favorite and usually-most-comforting
podcasts, Pop Culture Happy Hour. Without
any kind of disclaimer or warning, they lead off a review of the (fascist
propaganda) reboot of Roseanne with a
quote from the show’s rotten-to-the-core title character. The line was a
contemptuously delivered slur against Hillary Clinton, calling our rightful
president a “liar, lair pantsuit on fire.” I’ve been writing a lot lately about
feeling the chill of real evil, and the horror of it hit my spine before I
banged on the button to turn off the car stereo.
And so, I drove the rest
of the way to my appointment steaming with frustration, feeling hurt and
betrayed that a trusted podcast would inject something that awful into my afternoon.
Remember when John Oliver told everyone to write a sticky note that said “NOT
NORMAL” to help keep us from getting sucked into a moral cesspool after Trump’s
(stolen) election? DID POP CULTURE HAPPY
HOUR LOSE THEIR STICKY NOTE? Is that why they were reviewing Roseanne as if it were a regular sitcom
and not a love letter to the fictional “white working class” whom we’ve somehow
excused for voting for a racist, misogynist monster because being poor somehow
entitled them to their hatred? (Please read Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The First White President for the history
of the “white working class” as it is used to support racism throughout American
history. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/)
The Roseanne line triggered physical fear and anxiety because of the
abuse that I and my friends took when we were working our asses off to get Hillary
Clinton elected. Unfortunately, as I’ve written about many times, that abuse
did not just come from the right. In fact, the worst hatred I encountered
during the 2016 election was during the primary, in the form of the (We now
know it’s Russian troll farm fueled https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/16/bernie-sanders-russia-2016-election-interference-415691)
openly misogynist, fanatic zeal of Bernie Sanders supporters.
Primary flashbacks had resurfaced
a few days before when a local feminist educator and spoken word leader I’ve
admired for a decade posted a “Bernie 2020” themed article on her facebook page.
In the conversation that followed, I learned that she hadn’t known about the
Russian interference or about the misogyny. https://theserotoninfactory.blogspot.com/2016/05/being-woman-in-time-of-hillary-haters.html
(Admittedly, the troll farms part doesn’t prove he was a bad candidate, just
that Russia saw him as destabilizing. I can’t really see destabilizing as an
inherently bad thing.)
My friend kindly asked
for some articles to send her in the direction of my viewpoint, and I sent
them. (Remember how Roxane Gay at one point felt afraid to endorse Hillary?!
ROXANE GAY! https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/opinion/sunday/hate-that-doesnt-hide.html
) But honestly, I was a little frustrated, because so many of us have been telling
this story for TWO YEARS and my friend had somehow missed it. Algorithms, probably,
but still. I kinda wish that instead of sending articles, I had just asked her
to believe me.
Hillary-trolling abusiveness
has a much more important effect than bumming me out on the way to my massage
appointment or making me misogyny-splain on facebook. Though I’m with the Women’s
March for life and I believe we’re much bigger than our (often hateful-dude-admiring)
leadership, many of us were inspired to fight the patriarchy off of our march
last year when they tried to make Bernie Sanders one of the lead speakers of our
conference. http://time.com/4981357/bernie-sanders-womens-march-convention/
This week, the Women’s March partnered with Bernie voters’ “Our Revolution”
group, which is the opposite of intersectional in that it views economic injustice
as the only valid form of injustice.
To me, Hillary-bashing is
partly “identity politics”--both Trump supporters and Bernie Bros seek to erase
the importance of identity in the struggle for justice, while Hillary’s campaign
was built upon acknowledging ALL forms of disparity. Many of her speeches
include some variation on this sentiment:
“And we Democrats agree on defending all of our rights – civil rights
and voting rights, workers’ rights and women’s rights, LGBT rights and rights
for people with disabilities.” (PA primary victory speech, 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjjPDHAQxLU)
When people on the right and left dismiss “identity
politics,” they’re trying to erase one of the few political candidates who made
me feel fully included in her speeches, who cared about the struggles of the
children I teach and the children in my family.
In
addition to the all-identities-but-straight-white-male-erasing ethos of Bernie
and Trump, the horror my body feels about that Roseanne quote comes from the
good old fashioned gaslighting of it all. Because of the erasure that comes
from the right and from the (mostly white male) far-left, I’ve had to check the
numbers many times to remind myself that we won. We chose her. We voted. We won.
And then I watched formerly peace-loving friends go off the rails entirely,
accusing us of theft, defending the chair-throwing, doxing, vicious homes-of-delegates-calling
entitled white voters in the name of being “progressive.”
Other
than the physical toll that it took to watch Bernie and then Trump gaslight
Hillary/America in rallies and on debate stages, other than the troll-trauma
that still lives in my body, why is this still important? Why not just let it
go in the name of unity?
Mostly,
I do. I’ll defend the Women’s March to anyone who questions them, even as their
leaders make misogynist alliances. I’ll canvas alongside neighbors who would
have called me a stupid shill if they’d known me in 2016, I’ll join marches with
local justice groups who have carried “Killary” signs in the past. I continue
to participate in a political system that defaults to punishing women who get
involved, because the only way it’ll get better is if people like me stay
involved. But the compromise costs me, it takes a physical toll no matter how
much I prioritize self-care.
To
Pop Culture Happy Hour, I would say, for those of us deep in the struggle, you
weren’t just sharing a quote from a mean lady saying a stupid thing. You were
placing into my otherwise pleasant afternoon one of the most poisonous, vicious,
damaging ideas to ever hit the American airwaves: that women, especially
ambitious women, cannot be trusted. We are not liars. It’s past time to believe
us. To America, I would say, hear us and take our side. It’s time for you to
stop punishing us for trying to save your asses from Trump.
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