For the past few years, I’ve been seeing a rapid increase in liberal rhetoric surrounding secession, and it scares me.

I’m white, engaged to a black woman. We have already gotten pretty overt hostility from racists in our community. When people say shit like that, they’re saying it’s okay to throw me, my fiancee, and tens of millions (including other liberals) to the wolves to win some political points.

It embodies the disregard for human rights we see in the U.S. government. I feel like me and my soon-to-be wife are just props to them. We exist when it’s convenient, but the moment it isn’t, we’re fucked.

I don’t even know how to address it, either. I don’t want my family and anyone who isn’t white or doesn’t have the right religion, skin tone, political beliefs or sexual orientation to live as a second class citizen, but a growing number of “allies” seem to think it’s okay.

Most of us can’t “just leave” like they say, either. That’s too fucking expensive. It’d financially destroy most people if they tried to uproot their lives like that.

  • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    34
    ·
    1 year ago

    as they say, scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds. They care about minorities right up until it inconveniences them or they decide the minorities are to blame for whatever they’re mad about.

  • Judge_Jury [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    28
    ·
    1 year ago

    I live in a neoconfederate hotbed so I don’t know many left-liberals, but yeah that would worry me on a personal level at least. If their top concern for problems is that they stop bothering them, they’re probably going to act like cops any time they’re inconvenienced by someone they see as lower status

    • BansheeOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I think you captured their sentiment perfectly. Red states bother them, and their solution is increasingly to let the red states have their way. And I fear, when people like us start bothering them to, you know, defend our rights, we’ll get ignored.

      I mean, fuck, union activists and BLM protestors already got that very same treatment. They’d rather live oblivious to this country’s problems than address them

  • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    1 year ago

    I feel like me and my soon-to-be wife are just props to them

    That’s the neat part, you are! Welcome to a glimmer of what it feels like to being a targeted minority

  • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    1 year ago

    I think you tend to see this stuff from liberals who kinda know the jig is up, it’s a fantasy in which they get to follow all the rules and win in politics without taking any action themselves. For some of them it might be the only scenario that they can imagine where they win.

    • BansheeOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      1 year ago

      That tracks. And to be frank, I don’t know if they’re wrong. Globally, it looks like neoliberalism is crumbling, including in America. The rise of modern fascist movements and the end of democratic pretense in conservative parties is a testament to that fact.

      And as bad as liberalism has been, it’s kind of a “devil you know” going up against one that will be even worse. It’s a race to the bottom for us.

      • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        1 year ago

        But in a sense they’re also dropping the pretense. It isn’t nice but it is good that they are being clear, when pressed, about how little they care about you. When things go sideways their plan has always been to abandon working and marginal people and retreat to their safe enclaves.

        • BansheeOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          1 year ago

          You’re right, in a weird, and very uncomfortable way, it’s been liberating to know that libs never gave a shit. It’s the truth, and it hurts, but at least I can plan for it, rather than wait for help that’ll never arrive.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        That tracks. And to be frank, I don’t know if they’re wrong. Globally, it looks like neoliberalism is crumbling, including in America. The rise of modern fascist movements and the end of democratic pretense in conservative parties is a testament to that fact.

        The West Wing is like the neoliberal bible and even there the great victory is “less concessions than expected.” this-is-fine

  • Jeremy [Iowa]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    1 year ago

    Frankly, this seems to be the natural culmination of a trend in how liberals define themselves as not the other team to such an extent they lose all self-reflection and totally miss how they’re incidentally letting the other team shape them. They’ve pretty much entirely lost touch with the reality that exists outside upper-middle-class suburbia.

    You nailed it in that they suddenly care about not dedicated proud Democrats long enough to try and doom-and-gloom you into voting for them - with the ironic fire and brimstone messaging lost on them - but once the election ends, at best, you cease to exist. At worst, you’re part of a bloc that didn’t unanimously vote blue therefore are to blame for the loss.

    Does it scare me? Not overly much - I still suspect we’re equal parts just seeing brought to the surface what was always there via social media and idiocy amplification, and the unfortunate endgame of partisanship and the resulting ideological and governmental deadlocks. It’s unfortunate and saddening but not overly worrying.

    What does worry me is their tendency to mirror their opponents in rhetorical patterns, messaging patterns, dogpiling, groupthink, etc. with absolute unawareness of such. ~2/3 the country is so deadlocked on fuck the other team they can’t even fathom they’re both getting fleeced. I’m not sure how much longer that is going to be sustainable… but throw that into the bucket of things they don’t actually care about and don’t want to think about.

  • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    1 year ago

    I have to stop reading comments in liberal covid subs very quickly now, because every news of accelerated social murder in red states quickly brings out people saying “well fuck em, elections have consequences, natural selection in action” and all the other horrible eugenicist things the “good guys” say at the drop of a hat

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    It’s smug liberals ceding territory, in this case potentially literally, to fascists. It doesn’t matter what happens to 49% (or more, because of voter suppression tactics and general demoralization of non-chuds) of the population of such areas that did not vote for fascists; they must be punished all the same for failing to provide HER TURN. hillary-disgust

  • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    1 year ago

    “From the mouths of babes.”

    The splitting of The USA would be a major boon for the working class and the global south. Of course that isn’t what the libs want they just want a Nuevo-fascist state where they are inclusive of LGBTQ+ and people of all colors as long as they are legal immigrants and hate Russians and see see pee. They fail to see how much of america’s military and economic power would not just be split and diminished by the resulting secession.

    If anyone says “Why don’t red states just secede?” you can just call them idiots and dunk on them. They haven’t thought that through to its inevitable conclusions or looked into the last time some states tried to secede.

  • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    1 year ago

    Yes, it does worry me. I am staying not just because it would be financially ruinous to leave the state, but because the more of us stay and fight and organize, the better our chances of keeping each other safe and building something better.

  • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    1 year ago

    As a non-American, I have completely given up on the possibility of America adopting non-Imperialist foreign policy. Therefore, a balkanized America directing its violence inwards is the lesser evil compared to the current state of affairs.

  • LaughingLion [any, any]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    1 year ago

    the balkanization of the usa is inevitable so it doesnt particularly bother me if someone is ambivalent to it happening in a year or ten years from now

    i currently live in florida and am making moves to get out of here because the writing is on the wall