Stuck in the middle with you.

Thoughts about finding the middle ground.

I consume a lot of digital media. I realize the sources I follow have a definite bias, and because I’m aware of that, I’m able to dissect and interpret the information provided. I can determine what is true and factual, and what is tilted because of the perspective. As I was working on something around the house this past weekend, I had videos playing in the background. I heard a soundbite from TYT that made me stop in my tracks, think about the absolute madness that I heard, and consider why it made me so angry. It wasn’t the TYT channel, but it was a clip from there. I heard that self-aggrandizing, pompous, jackass Cenk Uygur talking about Trump and the Epstein files, and he had the audacity to say “This is our middle ground with MAGA. They want justice, and we on the left want justice as well. We need to invite them over to our side.” Cenk doesn’t get it, and he never has and he never will.

Let’s be clear, MAGA doesn’t want justice. They want patriarchal, straight white male justice. As long as the victims are young white girls, they will remain outraged. If the victims were not white, or young girls, they wouldn’t be clamoring for “justice”. MAGA has shown us this over and over. The didn’t want justice for Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, or Stephon Clark. No. They find reasons to justify the deaths of people of color. They don’t want justice for the children being separated from their families at schools, churches, and parks. No. They want to blame these children, label them illegal, and say they had it coming. They repeat the Trump talking point that “You don’t have a country if you don’t have borders”, but what they REALLY mean is “You can’t have a WHITE country if you don’t have borders”. MAGA doesn’t want justice for the Palestinian population being raped and systematically eliminated. They don’t want justice for the millions of Americans that will die due to their policies. They don’t want justice for the victims of Donald Trump. No, they want qualified justice. They want justice for the victims they choose of worthy of justice, but that’s not how it works. Justice is an absolute, or at least should be. Race, class, religion, immigration status, sexual orientation, or any other “qualifiers” need to be ignored when it comes to justice.

And that is why Cenk doesn’t get it. MAGA doesn’t want justice, it wants selective justice. Just because there is a little overlap in the Venn diagram between MAGA and everyone else doesn’t constitute middle ground. These are still people who want a white nationalist Christian corporatocracy. What Cenk is saying is akin to saying to the Nazis in 1930s Germany “Hey, YOU like the Autobahn, and WE like the Autobahn, so let’s just overlook the murder of 6 million Jews and come together”. Cenk will never get it, either. You don’t defeat fascism by joining with it, you defeat it by force. We will never be able to vote our way into a revolution when the rules and institutions are as broken as they are. We must create action and fight for justice. I would love for that action to have come through nonviolent means, but I think it’s too late for that. We must stand up and declare that we refuse to share any middle ground with fascists. We need to kick them out of the Venn diagram, and recognize that we are not the same.