It’s been a wild week to be a leftie.
First there’s Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who became the target of unrelenting right-wing Christian Facebook hate and slander by uneducated pearl-clutchers transvestigating the Olympics for an opportunity to say “men” were beating up on women, only to later find out they’d erroneously misjudged Khelif on her appearance after she defeated an Italian boxer who forfeited their match in tears. Turns out the Italian not only knew Khelif for many years, so her allegations of Khelif punching like a man were false, but she also regretted her decision to leave the ring. Khelif was the target of so much international hate she had to issue a statement during Olympic competition week to the press, regarding bullying, that:
“It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying.”
I wonder, what do these “Christians” who post hate-filled posts on Facebook teach their children? Only to accept those who look exactly like themselves, and to hate everyone else? That it’s okay to discriminate against anyone who isn’t just like you?
What does the process look like of indoctrinating your children with the level of hatred, bigotry, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and fascism necessary to support Trump and his idiot zero-personality sidekick, Vance, a hypocrite yammering about military service while he simps for a draft-dodger who dishonors veterans on the regular? You leave Newsmax or Fox news on, or teach hate directly in coloring books at the kitchen table, what? You tell your kids you’re going to vote for an insurrectionist convicted felon rapist because you got sucked into a cult? No wonder we’re calling you weird.
I watched a harrowing documentary Bad Faith which explained a lot about how church has been institutionally used across time to erase the boundaries between politics and religion and specifically target and demonize the left. It’s terrifying, but at least documents the origin story of the extreme Christian nationalist right.
This week also featured the announcement of Kamala Harris’ pick of Tim Walz as her running mate. Now is a time on Facebook when we see who our Facebook “friends” are supporting based on their posts. I’m not someone who wastes time arguing with people on Facebook about politics, because I don’t think it’s any of my business what other people believe, and because people have a right to post their own beliefs on their own pages. However, I also have a right not to be exposed to that conservative garbage, so I can unfriend/block/unfollow at will depending on my relation to the poster. Don’t come at me or try to change my views, I will return the favor, and we can co-exist in peace if not hang out.
I’m sad in many ways that little girls of the right are not being taught the joy of what a first multi-racial woman president means to our country; seeing women in particular post hatefully about Harris brings sadness to my 1970s-kid women’s lib heart, but there isn’t anything I can do about that. Like Walz says, it falls under “not my circus not my monkeys.” I’m fine with losing the wrong kind of friends and followers. I can stick to Threads over X-Twitter, watch Rachel, Jon, and my favorite: the eloquence and precision of the verbal skewering of Trump almost nightly after my pot gummy by the brilliant Lawrence O’Donnell. “Lefty libtard commies” or whatever we’re called are on the right side of history when it comes to democracy over dictatorship.