You don’t actually wanna punch a nazi.
Now hear me out. I know you want to you just don’t want a world where punching is how we figure this stuff out.
Now look. I know this subject has been done to death and I know Noah did a diatribe about it already but I wanted to have my say not because I disagree with Noah but because I wanna talk about what I think the people talking about punching nazis actually mean…and if noah doesn’t let me do this kind of thing occasionally I poison heath.
So with that in mind let me beg your patience and make one last appeal to the last remaining few who say they really want some nazi punching to happen.
First off. Let me join you in celebrating anyone hurting Richard spencer. Watching Richard Spencer gets punched in the face was great. I’d love it to replace several of our national pastimes. I’d love it to get stage time at coachella but truth be told we got lucky. If that punch had been too hard or too fast or he had been too unprepared we could have a video of someone killing richard spencer and martyrs are always bad…always.
Now wait. I already hear your objection. And yes. Fuck that guy. Truly, madly deeply by Savage Garden fuck that guy. And as someone who spent the last two weeks having people condescendingly explain to me that he’s not actually a 1940’s NAZI, that he’s a neo nazi with special names for himself I can happily say fuck all of his apologists too. Not the people who don’t want him punched, the assholes who pretend this all would be over if only the black guy who makes friends with the kkk got a hold of him. If only someone had debated him intelligence squared. FUCK YOU. That’s a whole nother one of these things And if I thought that ONLY Richard Spencer was gonna get punch killed in a world of punching and killing I’d make Willy Wonka stopping Augustus Gloop look downright emergent but he’s not and we need to take a moment to acknowledge that he’s not.
Look forget the higher ground bullshit. I’m gonna get to that in a second. He’s already tweeting coy little hints about “violence is as violence does” and cartoons about Auschwitz about how “we didn’t think of this until you wouldn’t stop punching us” and Richard Spencer is clever but people are reading those tweets for what they are. Invitations to violence. And you and I are mad right now but we don’t want a war and that’s what these scumfuck pieces of shit want. They want a war. And do you know why we don’t want that? Because we don’t want the blood of someone who didn’t sign up on our hands. Again, if Richard Spencer wants to clink bottles on his fingers and meet me by the old oak tree then I’m all for it. I’ll invite Tom from Cog Dis and wear my shortest cheerleading uniform while he explains that, “fragility is not a virtue” but he and his wont come for me. They’ll come for the weak. They’ll come for the afraid. They’ll come for the vulnerable. They already do and now they’ll feel justified. Now they’ll feel empowered.
And speaking of justified you wanna know what’s worse than serious reflection for my nazi punching boner? The gloating of the so called “real liberals” Gosh wasn’t it convenient that all they had to talk about that week was that our side seemed to be legitimately advocating violence. Wasn’t that just peachy keen so that they didn’t have to talk about the women’s march when they’ve made their living for years shitting on the rights of women. How fantastic that we provided them this living breathing distraction for the evil they have wrought on the world by playing devil’s advocate and winning his case. As if they fucking care about violence. Or safety. Fuck me. Hell, I’d hide the guy who punched Richard Spencer in my house like the underground railroad but I’d turn him in for the crime of putting me on the same side of any issue as Dave Rubin and I’d throw away the fucking key.
So with all that said. With all those excuses made. Let’s talk about why were really mad. Let’s be honest. Were fucking tired of following a broken system. Aren’t you? I know I am.. I voted. You voted right? I saw hillary was an unlikable shrill corporate safety school candidate and I got right the fuck in line. I voted and I told you to vote for her when you told me you were gonna vote for gary johnson I got on skype with you or I sent you links to change your mind or I tweeted with you for 9 fucking hours while my wife envied the wives of 17th century merchant marines. Or performed yet more debate theater, an activity which I FUCKING HATE, to change your mind. And where did it get me. Where did it get us? We lost because coal miners are stupid, because swing state liberals are lazy or spoiled, and because our election system was made to keep things fair among barely literate slave owners. For the first time in my generation’s politically active memory this system FAILED us and it failed us hard.
And you know what people do when a system fails? You know what I wanna do? I wanna abandon that system. And when someone tells me not to punch a nazi you know what I hear? Give it a minute it will work THIS time I promise. You just gotta believe. How fucking lucky and unaware must one be to look at the world we live in and still think democracy works.
The day after the women’s march, the largest demonstration in U.S. history trump reinstated the global gag order. You know why? Because FUCK you and me. That’s why. Because peaceful protest only matters if the people you’re protesting CARE…and Trump wants you to know he doesn’t care. Under any other administration in the system you and I were brought up to believe works it should have worked. Trump would have made some overtures, some changes, something right? Isn’t that how our shitty little system is supposed to go?
But the system is broken. It’s broken and I’m gonna be honest I don’t believe it can or will be fixed and that’s why you wanna punch a nazi. That’s sure as fuck why I did. Because it’s something to DO. You can’t filibuster a nazi punch
But I got bad news. The punching…isn’t saving anyone. I have 10,000 comic books, literally, and I love but you wanna learn the only universal lesson there is to know about super heros? They don’t solve problems they create them and what you and I need to do is way way harder than punching. We need to get to work.
I get messages pretty regularly from people who ask me how I stay sane, how I keep from getting washed under the ocean of despair and the truth is some days I do get washed under. On some days I just read snide tweets from teenagers who think they’re smarter than me and scared tweets from people who will be the casualties of a temporary backslide on a timeline that it seems only I can see but on the days I stay afloat it’s by doing something nothing can stop.
You know, a few days ago my wife marched and I skyped with this kid who now admits that the wall is probably a bad idea. Later we do a fundraiser and my wife volunteers. If your Sally Yates you look into the orange face of the goddamn president say no and you lose your job and if you’re those lawyers at JFK you sit on the floor and you HELP people and you carve your heroics into record of time, remembered only in a photograph as the difference between now and then. I’m not those lawyers and you’re not me, you don’t have my show but you have SOMETHING you can do. Something no law or policy or executive order can take away from you You already know it. You already know what you actually need to DO…and it isn’t punch a nazi.
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