How It Should Be Done: Normalized Violence and Abuse and The World As It Is
Tom Cotton and others like him are now saying the quiet part loud.
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First off, Tom Cotton is an asshole.
We live in an era of assholes. Gleeful assholes. Unrepentant assholes. And let me tell you, among this gaggle of assholes, this fading empire of assholes, Tom Cotton still stands among the the biggest and the worst.
A couple of days ago, the senator from Arkansas took to Twitter and advocated violence with all the interest and import of asking someone to pick up your laundry from the cleaners.
Some of us were pretty quick to see exactly what Cotton was getting at here. After all, this was the same guy who got featured in The New York Times advocating for the military to come in and wipe out the Black Lives Matter protest movement. Of course, some were quick to say, maybe he doesn’t mean violence? Why are you always jumping to these kinds of conclusions.
Luckily, Cotton loves attention and couldn’t help but go on Fox News and clarify exactly what he meant. In this clip he infers that protesters should be thrown off bridges by fellow citizens and have “their skin ripped off.” It shouldn’t surprise anyone how ugly and vicious Cotton’s imagination truly is, because it’s necessary to advocate these kinds of things.
Not one to let any of this go, or let any of it be left to the imagination Cotton has now shared a clip of motorists dragging protesters out of the street and kicking them, remarking, “How It Should Be Done.”
Some of us who have been spotlighting the growth of extremism and radicalization for years have once more tried to highlight instances like these in which the fascistic tendencies are explicit as it exemplifies the normalization. With this instance, and maybe predictably so because it involves A. the crimes in Israel/Gaza and B. daily inconveniences, we are also seeing quite a few people stand with Cotton who might otherwise stand opposed.
Before we dive deeper, some basic facts.
Tom Cotton is absolutely advocating for his supporters to take matters into their own hands and use violence against protesters and political opponents.
This is a hallmark of authoritarian/fascist ideology as it features violence and intimidation to undermine basic rights such as speech and assembly and, over time, is wielded as a means of also replacing democracy with authoritarian rule
One of the cornerstones of liberal democracy is the idea that a supposedly just and unbiased legal system mediates between two individuals, taking the place of “right-is-on-my-side” matters of violence
Cotton and other instinctual fascists (including Donald Trump and a whole host of MAGA personalities) see the law as a weapon that is to be used against others by people like themselves. The rationality is that they are “realists” who support tenants of liberal democracy until they either don’t serve them anymore or they become inconvenient. This game - “I’m for it, except when ______” - is about plausible deniability. After all, you can’t be a fascist if you sometimes support liberalism, right?
In the wake of World War II and the eventual stalling of Fascism and Nazism - which were, again, inspired and informed by American politics that look a lot, lot, lot like what we’re dealing with now - bastions of liberal democracy, especially the United States, have worked hand-in-hand with literal dictators and former Nazis and Fascists in order to carry out oppressive agendas. This partnership has so thoroughly infected America and its partners that authoritarianism is once more taking control. Many, like Cotton, have been able to “hide” their leanings via carefully chosen rhetoric and displays, but as things progress, the need to hide isn’t as important as it becomes more and more normalized.
Unfortunately, some of the liberal reaction to Cotton’s calls aligns with recent feelings on the Gaza brutality in general and developments between Iran and Israel. And that is because, contrary to what a lot of people believe about themselves, and despite what they say and what they claim, they are secretly in line with many of the fascistic and authoritarians ideas that Cotton says, just not consciously.
This requires a deeper dive.