• lemonaz@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    That’s certainly a part of it, especially the performative cruelty to own the libs. Though I think it goes beyond one group targeting another. It feels like a broad generic metastasized bigotry: a low-trust society full of people so high on their own grievances that they love nothing more than taking revenge on strangers. Sure, racism makes it more likely they target minorities, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is safe. When people are this paranoid, they’re just looking for reasons to blame anybody who gives them a bad “vibe” (which is most people). And they revel in it.

    I know it’s not everyone behaving like this, and yes some do it more than others (e.g. uneducated white men), but it sure feels like so many people of all races/genders/etc. are fine just outsourcing their cruelty to the regime. It doesn’t matter if the targets are one race or the other, they hate them all the same (they’ll make up reasons on the spot) because they’ve learned either to take sadistic pleasure in the cruelty itself (i.e. the cruelty is the point and the target is just the “object” the cruelty is applied to, feeling just as good to them when it’s a brown Venezuelan man or a white Canadian woman) or simply to ignore it, excuse it and just not care.

    It’s like Orwell’s two minutes of hate, all the time and for no reason.

    • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      2 days ago

      I agree it’s not purely racism, it’s generally hate of ‘the other’.

      However, I’m brown, and I the only place in America that I’ve directly experixed this kind of absolute, all-consuming hatred has been in the south.

      White men everywhere else have been quite decent, even rural white men.

      But southerners… Hitler wrote about Jim crow in mein kampf as the model for Germany to follow, and black GIs came back from liberating Europe to be lynched for being uppity.

      I have never witness or experienced such unimaginable hatred in my life, it’s as though it’s all they have room for in their hearts.

      It’s as though they generally felt they were suffering badly, and their only hope for redemption with through causing as much pain and damage as possible to those who weren’t their community’s ideal archetype.

      • lemonaz@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 days ago

        Exactly, that’s what I was getting at. I’d find it intolerable to live like that (which is what fuels their bigotry, no doubt).

        I’m very sorry to hear about your experiences. I hope you’re able to shield yourself from harm until this regrettable period can be overcome. Stay safe.

        • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          2 days ago

          Thanks, I managed to escape the south for the coasts and now got my family out to Europe.

          The monsters are rampaging, and America has fallen to their inhuman rage.

          • lemonaz@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            2 days ago

            Oh, I’m happy for you!

            I’m also in Europe but a little too far east for my liking. Thinking about leaving as well (not far, just a few countries over, somewhere nice).

            Yeah, it looks like America will get much worse before it gets better.