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uspol on a deeply personal level
My childhood experience being bullied is;
Bully harms and ridicules me, so either 1) I stay calm and take it, which implies that I am terrible and invites more mistreatment or 2) attempt to push back a little bit, which invites more mistreatment or 3) escalate to violence, which definitely gets me hurt, which might get them to stop, and also gets me labeled a horrifying vicious psychopath.
I consider all Republicans/conservatives to be bullies, and I feel we've seen all three reactions from those of us who aren't fucking fash assholes.
While I hate the situation and all fucking Republicans, I *am* glad I know what buttons are being pushed and hope it'll help me step back from making myself unhappy.
re: uspol on a deeply personal level
Addendum;
Part of my childhood was a lot of the inconsistency *especially* as regards power differences. If someone was good looking or played football, a different set of rules applied to them and they could screw with my life but good. The adult world - so we're talking about the 80s - could devastate the environment, let AIDS go out of control, push their religion, and push us towards nuclear annihilation, and they were saints for doing it. Etc etc. And it's motivated by the same sort of thing as we're seeing now - someone wants what they want, they make it happen over any consistency or objection through sheer power, and they push it as good (because that's what they truly believe).
Thus, my buttons about authority, favoritism, power, elitism etc have been seriously pressed again and again lately - so what's useful here is for me to remember that that nobody's actually being punished for being bad (these are selfish people and their selfishness harms everyone), and that I can control some other parts of my life.