My friend - I didn’t reply to defend myself from your arguments, or to demand anything from you. I replied because I’ve known people who express this level of anger and hate, and I’ve seen this kind of thinking lead them to extremely dark places. And that includes myself.

This is not concern trolling, I’m not trying to win or get a rise out of you here, and I’m trying my best not to sound condescending (admittedly without much success) - Please take better care of yourself. Please don’t push away the vast majority of people who do not share your rage. And please, for the love of all that is holy, touch some grass before you give yourself an aneurysm.

I told myself earlier that I’d stop replying, but I felt the need to give this one last try with more direct communication. I’m going to commit this time, if only for the sake of your blood pressure. Wishing you well, genuinely.

Sure, let’s hold the victims of fascism accountable for the actions of fascists.

If you’d actually read my comment, you would have realized that you’re demonstrating exactly what I was talking about. You want to hold fascists accountable, but you don’t have the immediate means to do that. So you turn around and victim-blame your fellow sufferers.

You’re not the first person to fall into this trap. It’s the entire reason people voted for Trump - if you can’t change the system that’s screwing you over, at least you can punish the people around you and call that accountability. I hope we can be smart enough not to do this to each other, but the responses in this thread are making it hard to be optimistic.

So, ironically, I’m going to tune out of this conversation too, before it crushes me even more. I’m going to try to find hope and courage elsewhere, because I’m all out of it at the moment. To the rest of you, whoever you are, I hope you can find it too.

Ok, fine - everyone who didn’t vote is irresponsible and unreliable and a bad ally or whatever, and also let’s do Fox News’ work for them and blame left-leaning emancipatory movements for our problems.

Now what? What viable allies, what options, does this frame of reference leave you with? What are you going to do now?

I’ve spent a lifetime watching people blame the ones closest to them for their problems, while the real enemy is right in front of them. It’s a powerful human impulse, and it’s the primary right-wing impulse. I’m not foolish enough to think it’s ever going away. I can only hope, like I hope of right-wingers, that you’re not too far gone into rage and despair to understand what’s going on.

I can only hope that at some point, before it’s too late, you’ll consider how far a political establishment needs to fall that the people it’s supposed to stand for find it less depressing to tune out; that the only people who engage with the system do it to bring in a guy who’ll tear it all down. I hope you’ll be able to direct your rage at the people who truly deserve it.

I hope you find a way to work with the rest of us. Otherwise, I hope that you’re strong enough to fix this yourself.