Trauma Begets Trauma

The political expediency of holding one’s nose

Photo by Mateusz Wacławek on Unsplash

I’m seeing the same pattern repeating in nearly all the great, progressive, countercultural, or justice inflected organizations that I’m working to support: infighting. Someone says or does something that “triggers” someone else, and then an internal struggle over righteousness or purity or even just appropriate engagement ensues.

Meanwhile, the overt problem we were gathered to address — racism, capitalism, climate change, violence, homophobia, oppression of women, student debt, you name it — ends up ignored, or at least postponed. Worse yet, the “other” side (the folks taking away women’s rights, stalling climate remediation, or selling government to the highest bidder) continues unchallenged. That’s because we’re too busy figuring out who among us deserves to remain instead of how to establish even provisional solidarity in order to face collective challenges.

This problem doesn’t just infect the progressive Left. Liz Cheney — one of the staunchest and most consistent conservatives in Congress — was canceled by her own party for rejecting Trump’s fantasy that he won the election. While I doubt more than 2 or 3 percent of Republican congresspeople genuinely believe Trump won, a great majority of the party recognize that feigning such beliefs makes rhetorical and emotional sense…