SJ Longthorne

Trump comes out with his pussy comment. We are horrified. We think that’s it for him — he fucked up. But his popularity skyrockets. Why? Is it possible that it could literally come down to spite, because his words spit in the face of the politics we strive for?

We are not convincing people to our cause. We are silencing them, shaming them. But their silence speaks louder than our quote tweets when Election Day comes. And then who’s really fucked it? Is it possible we’re complicit in our own defeat?

What happens when you accuse someone and set the Twitter hounds on them? Do we think they’ll be sympathetic? Is it possible that we’ve alienated that many people that badly that this crap from Nigel F is actually a rallying cry?

Regardless of whether we’re in ‘the right’, regardless of whether our beliefs are ‘good’, we have become ‘the enemy’ by virtue of our *sometimes* obnoxious moral high ground-taking. We’re the unpopular leader who rules with fear, who everyone plots to usurp, because fear.

Our conviction that we are right, that our beliefs are fundamentally good — which I share — is our downfall. It has made us loud, scornful and dismissive, and that has made us — and our ideologies — hated.

I’m not necessarily sure what the answer is, after all this. But I am sure that we’re less popular than we think. That the hatred for us is wider spread than we think, because sometimes we act hatefully, because we think it’s deserved, and we laugh. And that worries me.

...I don’t think Trump and Brexit are the pinnacle. I think it’s going to get worse. And it will continue to do so until we realise the effect we’re having and figure out a way to stand by our beleifs without alienating people. And I worry that will be too late, if it happens.

The current trajectory looks very bleak. If you disagree, consider how dire it is that Nigel’s tweet — that he probably doesn’t believe himself — is something he chose to post because he knew it would be effective with the aforementioned disenfranchised demographic he’s after.