Before I begin, I would like to remind you, dear reader, that I am not suicidal nor do I have any information that could lead to consequences for the subject of this piece.
Failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote a tone-deaf op-ed in The Washington Post, in which she parroted the familiar progressive line about right-wing radicalism and white supremacy... and blah blah blah.
The ultimate point Clinton tried, and failed, to make is that Americans must have more empathy for those with whom they disagree – and it shows precisely why nothing will change anytime soon.
Throughout the piece, Clinton highlights Shannon Foley, a former white supremacist who now works to pull others out of that lifestyle. The former candidate describes the activist’s journey, which is laudable:
Back in the 1990s, from the time she was 15 until she was 20, Shannon was active in the violent white-supremacy movement. She attended Ku Klux Klan rallies, tagged public property with swastikas, assaulted people of color, tear-gassed an LGBTQ+ nightclub and underwent paramilitary training to prepare for the race war her neo-Nazi leaders promised was imminent. Her comrades were white supremacists like the fanatics who years later carried torches through Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us!” and like many of the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Then, remarkably, she managed to get herself out and change her life. Now, Shannon helps people escape violent extremism. She’s seen how the dangerous, hateful movement has metastasized.
...
Things only got worse when Donald Trump publicly and proudly fanned the flames of racial resentment from the campaign trail and then the White House, emboldening white supremacists to emerge from the shadows.
I saw firsthand how fast conspiracy theories could spread and radicalization could take hold. During the 2016 campaign, a shocking number of people became convinced that I am a murderer, a terrorist sympathizer and the evil mastermind behind a child-sex-abuse ring. Alex Jones, the right-wing talk show host, posted a video about “all the children Hillary Clinton has personally murdered and chopped up and raped.”
Clinton referred to several conspiracy theories including Qanon and Pizzagate and predictably blamed former President Donald Trump. She also referred to the white nationalists’ march in Charlottesville.
“Social media gave conspiracy theories far wider reach than ever before. Fox News and other right-wing media outlets gave repeated outlandish lies 'credibility.' And before Trump, we’d never had a presidential candidate — and then an actual president — who used the biggest bully pulpit in the world to be an actual bully and traffic in this kind of trash,” she wrote.
Clinton pointed out how “The rise of social media allowed white-power leaders to more easily reach and radicalize thousands of recruits” and “Hate-fueled memes and video circulate online, evading detection in the dark corners of the internet with coded hashtags and innuendo.”
While discussing extreme rhetoric on the right, Clinton then acknowledges part of her role in fomenting division when she made her campaign-killing “deplorables” remarks.
I’ve struggled with this myself. In 2016, I famously described half of Trump’s supporters as “the basket of deplorables.” I was talking about the people who are drawn to his racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia — you name it. The people for whom his bigotry is a feature, not a bug. It was an unfortunate choice of words and bad politics, but it also got at an important truth. Just look at everything that has happened in the years since, from Charlottesville to Jan. 6. The masks have come off, and if anything, “deplorable” is too kind a word for the hate and violent extremism we’ve seen from some Trump supporters.
She then refers back to Foley and uses her as an example people should follow when dealing with hopelessly bigoted Trump supporters. “Empathy for someone you deeply, passionately disagree with is hard but necessary. What Shannon does, feeling empathy for Nazis and Klansmen, is damn near superhuman,” Clinton writes.
I’ve seen plenty of similar pieces written by folks on the left. Columnists implore their audiences to take a more empathetic approach to those poor, ignorant rubes who support Trump because they despise minorities and members of the LGBTQ communities. Some have simply called on conservatives to stop employing incendiary rhetoric.
Yet, what is commonly missing from these pieces is a real sense of accountability for how folks on the left have contributed to America’s political divide. Clinton makes no mention of the two assassination attempts against Trump, nor does she mention how Antifa operatives have routinely used violence against the former president’s supporters under the guise of fighting fascism.
This is because she doesn’t mean a word of what she says.
When someone suggests that it is only one side that is making division worse in America, they are not vying for peace, they are engaging in partisan politicking while appearing to take the high road.
Yes, there is plenty of problematic behavior from extremists on both sides. But as long as our supposed “leaders” focus only on pointing fingers, the problems will only get worse.
