Post 203 - September 30, 2020

Day 203…

Quarantine - Day 3

The Local Law 11 mandated work on our building continues. I woke up this morning to the sound of crumbling bricks being drilled out of the building’s outer walls. Thankfully, they are not currently working on a wall that is actually connected to our apartment. Not being able to leave the apartment while that is going on would be almost unendurable.

They are working their way down the wall opposite our kitchen window and are already a floor below us. I can hear them, but I can’t feel them the way that I can when they are working on our walls directly. At some point they are going to start on the wall that has our bedroom and living room windows on it and then it really will be awful. The work has to be done but it would be great if it just delayed enough that they didn’t start that for, say, another eleven days or so.

There is rain being forecast for Friday. Maybe that will help.

Predictably, last night’s debate was a disaster. It wasn’t a disaster for either of the candidates - both of them turned in performances that their bases could be OK with. It was a disaster for our country.

The President was in relentless aggressive attack mode. Almost everything that he said was skewed or completely untrue. He was rude and boorish throughout.

His opponent withstood him. He managed to get in a few moments where he actually looked into the camera and talked to us directly. He didn’t rise to the President’s bait, for the most part, but nor did he truly prevail.

Both sides could reasonably claim a ‘win’ but in reality, neither side won, and, as a result, we all lost.

The moderator was unable to control much of the evening. Whatever rules the President had agreed to, he did not follow. What should have been a thoughtful exchange of ideas and a discussion of policy, was, instead, in essence, an hour and a half-long verbal brawl. Whatever ideas that might have been in there got lost in the noise.

A friend of mine in Australia posted earlier on in the day the channel that people there could watch the debate on. For them, it started at 11:00am. All I could think was, oh no, please don’t.

It’s like the neighborhood getting together to watch your parents have a drunken brawl on the front lawn. We, as a country, should be mortified by what we showed the rest of the world last night.

(Just for the record, my parents never engaged in a drunken brawl on our front lawn.)

In the middle of the debate was one moment that chilled me more than any other.

Chris Wallace, the moderator asked the President, "Are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and Portland?"

He responded, "Sure, I'm willing to do that, I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not the right wing. I'm willing to do anything. I want to see peace."

Wallace kept going, "Then do it, sir."

Biden prodded him, "Say it. Do it. Say it."

What the President then said was, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I'll tell you what, somebody's gotta do something about Antifa and the left. This is not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem."

The Proud Boys is essentially an all-male far right organization that advocates and glorifies violence against the left. Their name comes from the song “Proud of Your Boy” from the Disney animated film Aladdin.

They started with a joke in a magazine called Taki’s Magazine. Taki’s Magazine is an online platform that is described as being paleoconservative.

Paleoconservatives in essence support American nationalism, Christian ethics, Regionalism and traditional conservatism. They are largely libertarian. They support immigration restrictions, the dismantling of multi-cultural programs, nonintervention internationally in terms of foreign policy and a decentralization of federal government to give more power to the states.

Taki’s Magazine started as a magazine of politics and culture. With a series of articles in support of a Greek neo-Nazi political party, it became obvious that their sympathies were strongly alt-right.

The Proud Boys started alt-right but after the neo-Nazi Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August of 2017 started pulling away from that. Their founder said that the alt-right’s focus is mainly race and that what they were advocating was what he called “Western values.”

Race, however, is certainly a major part of what they believe. These people think that there is a plot to dilute the purity of the white race through intermarriage, integration and abortion. The authors of this so-called “plot” are often said to be the Jews. Officially, these guys reject white supremacy, but, nonetheless, they often participate in racist-themed events.

The Proud Boys are profoundly anti-feminist. They believe that women are completely subservient to men. Remarkably, they actually have a female auxiliary branch that they call Proud Boys’ Girls who are completely on board with this.

The Proud Boys glorify violence. Their founder once said, "I want violence, I want punching in the face. I'm disappointed in Trump supporters for not punching enough."

The Anti-Defamation League warned that their, "extreme, provocative tactics—coupled with overt or implicit racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and misogyny and the fact that the group is so decentralized, inconsistent, and spread out—suggest the group should be a significant cause for concern"

In November of 2018 after the Charlottesville rally, the FBI classified the group as extremist with ties to white nationalism.

This is the group that the President instructed to “stand back and stand by”.

This should clear up any question, once and for all, about what this man thinks and where he stands. Not only is he unwilling to condemn white supremacy, he is its most visible and powerful advocate.

The Proud Boys have taken ‘stand back and stand by’ as a new slogan. They are treating it as a call to action. It’s trending on twitter. Newsweek is reporting that they are already selling merchandise with that emblazoned on it.

I tried to find it this morning but decided not to pursue it. I didn’t want the algorithms to start thinking that I was interested in buying any of it.

Fred Perry has stopped selling its black shirts with yellow piping in the US because the group has appropriated it as their costume.

Yesterday, I received a notification that my application to be an Election Day polling worker had been accepted.

I have a four-hour training session scheduled for October 17th. Early in-person voting begins on October 24th here in New York. I am not sure which days I will be working but I am willing to do as much as they need.

Some of my friends who have people in their lives who still support this President often get them responding to comments on Facebook posts that they aren’t racists. You cannot support a man as profoundly racist as this President and not, on some level, not be a racist yourself.

The President has now cleared up any possible confusion about what he believes.

There are only two choices. Support racism or oppose racism.

Sorry, but there is nothing whatsoever in the space between those two options. It’s time to face up to that.

There is only so much that each of us, individually, can do during this election. I’m honestly not comfortable making phone calls to strangers. Thank heavens I have plenty of friends who are.

I can, however, work in my polling station and do everything that I can to help it run smoothly and make sure that people get in and out as quickly and safely as possible.

It’s long past time for all of us to stand up and do what we can.

If we all do what we can, together, we can do it all.