They're talking about a military coup right now and if it doesn't happen we're going to be told the best way to heal is pretending it never happened.

This is how abuse works.

3,000 people are dying a day and after nearly a year of this Congress is releasing the barest fraction of the economic relief needed to keep people safe and only in exchange for the promise that we can't sue those who endangered the dead.

This is how abuse works.
We have a president who spent 4 yrs lying every time he opened his mouth, obvious lies everyone knew were lies, which his followers believed mostly because the sight of them believing lies caused the rest of us distress, and they loved our distress.

This is how abuse works.
We've endured the sight of police brutalizing our fellow citizens for years, a horror magnified by the knowledge that for Black people this brutality has been a constant way of life, but we're told change must wait, because we aren't asking right.

This is how abuse works.
We have been menaced and lied to and confronted with a daily litany of atrocity that has only made the Republican rank and file happier, and the only message we ever get is that we need to be better at relating to the feelings of people who find comfort in suffering.

It's abuse.
The undergirding load-bearing superstructure upon which our entire society is built is abuse and enablement, and it's sick, and it has to stop.

We need to stop this deadly unreasonable practice of expecting people to accept unacceptable things in order to be thought reasonable.
In order to have healing, we first need to cleanse the wound.

This healing needs rage.
Rage, and consequence, and a real reckoning.

Anything less is just pretending it didn't happen. It's how abuse works.
They're going to ask you to pretend that none of it happened. It's appropriate to be angry about that, because it was real, it was abuse, asking you to pretend otherwise is enablement, and it's always appropriate to be angry about enablement.

Enablement of abuse is abuse.
They're going to tell you that your anger makes you just as bad as them, as if it's anger that is the problem, rather than the reason for the anger.

It's appropriate to be angry when you're told that, because that is enablement.

Enablement of abuse is abuse.
They're going to tell you to look ahead, not behind—as if their unconcern with the trauma is maturity, which you can only share in by matching it.

It's appropriate to be angry, because making people pay the cost of their own trauma is enablement.

Enablement of abuse is abuse.
This shit happened, it was absolutely unacceptable, and anybody supporting it, or anybody wanting to ignore it to avoid a reckoning of real consequence, should not be allowed in polite company.

Refuse to pay their tax of abuse.
Your rage is yours, and it's appropriate, and it's necessary right now. The reason abusive enablers want it gone is simple: It's evidence.

Abusive people and their enablers dislike evidence.

Evidence leads to conviction.

Conviction, to consequence.
Reject the abusive notion that your anger is the problem, not the abuse that made your anger appropriate.

Reject the enabling notion that abuse is an unfortunate necessity, changing it is unrealistic, and demanding better is immature or divisive.

Refuse to pay the tax of abuse.
They're going to tell you that your anger is causing the abuse:

*Your anger demonizes abusers.
*Your anger leaves no room for them to be redeemed.
*Your anger makes abusers angry.
*It's forcing them to be abusive.

All this is how enablement of abuse works.

Enablement is abuse.
The redemption of abusive people is their project, not yours.

Your anger is appropriate. It's evidence. It mustn't be hidden, and those who suggest it should should be rejected.

Those who suggest a reckoning is unrealistic, or badly timed, or divisive, should be rejected.
This is how we break this cycle.

Refuse to pay the tax of abuse, as proxy for those who were harmed, to the benefit of abusers, all in the name of healing.

That is how abuse stops working.

More from A.R. Moxon

The reality is very simple: The Republican Party is no longer participating in democracy. They're running a series of ops against every election cycle, predicated on the notion that only their power is legitimate.


This isn't a failed coup. This is a *continuous* coup that stretches back years. It includes Gingrich's scorched earth methods, Bush v Gore, the politicizing of the Bush DoJ, the judicial obstructionism and nullification of the McConnell Senate, and the entire Trump presidency.

It includes decades of tortured racist gerrymandering and disenfranchisement, Citizens United, the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, PACs, and deliberately colluding with foreign powers.

This isn't a failed coup. This is a *continuous* coup that stretches back years.

The Republican Party is not participating in democracy. They are quite obviously an organization dedicated to the destruction and overthrow of the government of the U.S. as we know it, and should be treated as such.

There are no legitimate Republican office-holders.

I think there's a distinction to be made. Democrats are often weak/ineffective, and many are complicit because they're those things by choice—but institutionally they aren't authoritarian, and they aren't fascist. They're a corporatist conservative party.
Pundits: The fact that Ossoff and Warnock are unlikely to both win their elections means Joe Biden needs to court Republican votes rather than push a much-needed progressive agenda

*Ossoff and Warnock win handily*

Pundits: Ah. Nevertheless,


The only way political reporting in this country makes sense is if you understand that the almost universal, almost subconscious default assumption: that conservative white people are the protagonists of any story that's being told, no matter the facts of the story.

Just do the obvious and necessary good things and let the horrid evil people who hate good things squeal and cry about it forever.

I really need Democrats who will state the clear and obvious truth, which is that Republicans are our enemies, because they insist on attacking the very idea of a shared society and are more than happy to use violence to do it, which is the very definition of an enemy.

You can't make people who want to kill you not be your enemies even if you wish they'd be your friend.

They can stop trying to kill you, but until that happens they are your enemy, and acknowledging that fact isn't what makes that fact true.

More from Government

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1/ Here’s a list of conversational frameworks I’ve picked up that have been helpful.

Please add your own.

2/ The Magic Question: "What would need to be true for you


3/ On evaluating where someone’s head is at regarding a topic they are being wishy-washy about or delaying.

“Gun to the head—what would you decide now?”

“Fast forward 6 months after your sabbatical--how would you decide: what criteria is most important to you?”

4/ Other Q’s re: decisions:

“Putting aside a list of pros/cons, what’s the *one* reason you’re doing this?” “Why is that the most important reason?”

“What’s end-game here?”

“What does success look like in a world where you pick that path?”

5/ When listening, after empathizing, and wanting to help them make their own decisions without imposing your world view:

“What would the best version of yourself do”?