Bloody Shirt

 

As the Electoral College casts its vote, the “Stop the Steal” crowd is doubling down on its baffling inability to accept that their man lost the election.  The hyperbole emanating from social media is disturbing.

Although Arizona’s 11 presidential electors cast their votes earlier today for Joe Biden, the Arizona Republican Party retweeted a post from one of the true believers proclaiming, “I am willing to give my life for this fight.”  The AZ GOP appended the comment with its own: “He is.  Are you?”

I want to shrug off rhetoric like this.  Four years ago, I would have simply responded with an eyeroll.  Events since then, and particularly in the past year, make me take it seriously.  It isn’t that I expect mass violence to break out, though months of confrontation between Trump supporters and civil rights activists gives cause for concern.  Inflammatory statements like this tweet are bound to motivate some crazy fool to act on them.

During the countdown to Inauguration Day, expect the heavily surreal political atmosphere to thicken into a pall.  The astounding refusal of the “base” to accept the outcome in the face of contrary evidence reflects a complete break from reality.  Their fealty to a morally bankrupt man has morphed into a quasi-religious cause, with gestures such as the AZ GOP retweet being akin to the waving of a mythic bloody shirt.

Fortunately, I can socially isolate and don’t have to chance the possibility of face to face discussions with these people.  But I did learn the sentiments of some of my students since November 3^rd from their discussion posts and written assignments.  Several of them asserted the election was illegitimate, that votes weren’t counted, that dead people and the “illegals” cast votes, and so forth.  It’s annoying to read this tripe, but I resolved to remain professional (and keep my blood pressure down) by choosing not to engage.  I did the same in my live classes before we went remote, even when the Trumpies became more vocal as the election cycle got closer.

It’s too soon for me to worry about personal confrontations on campus or elsewhere, being that the pandemic has entered another lethal wave.  (That said, another brand of irrationality will cause some of us to refuse masks or to receive the vaccination once it becomes widely available, thereby prolonging the crisis.)  I have the luxury of watching events unfold from my living room.  But we need to learn to live together once the dust has settled, and there is a feeling somehow that a line has been crossed.  Don’t expect the violence of words and of deeds to abate after January 20^th.

 

 

© 2020 The Unassuming Scholar