Essay: Fuck Fascism
On Radical Rudeness
Rep. Al Green disrupting Trump’s address to Congress. Win McNamee/ Andrew Harnik/ Getty Images
Also read: Why Trump Won
And: Dear White Democrats
Fascism is not polite. Fascism is not civil. Fascism cares little for decorum.
When Rep. Al Green disrupted Donald Trump’s address to Congress, he issued a challenge that many lawmakers in that chamber failed. This is not business as usual, Green’s protest declared, as Trump spewed one lie after another. Instead of following Green’s lead, the majority of that chamber’s legislators–who collectively represent one of the three branches of power in the United States–acquiesced instead to applause, if they were Republican, and decorum, if they were Democrats. The Republicans in the chamber fell into a loud chant of “USA! USA! USA!” to suggest that Green’s protest was less American, less patriotic than their parroting chant.
Whether we are urged to be civil to racists, polite to patriarchy, or obedient to decorum when opposing a fascist, the goal is the same: to maintain the power of the racist, to maintain the power of patriarchy, to maintain the power of fascism.
Not only was Rep. Green kicked out of Congress for his protest of Trump, but he was censured the next day for “a breach of proper conduct.” It is telling that there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that describes lies as a “breach of proper conduct,” nor does it lay out a way to punish a fascist for targeting Black and people of colour, transgender people, and women as he dismantles a country for the benefit of oligarchs.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of those who voted to punish Green were Republicans, Shamefully, ten Democrats signed on to humiliate Green, only the 26th representative to be censured in U.S. history.
Whether we are urged to be civil to racists, polite to patriarchy, or obedient to decorum when opposing a fascist, the goal is the same: to maintain the power of the racist, to maintain the power of patriarchy, to maintain the power of fascism.
Demanding we stay within the confines of decorum even as a fascist fuck occupies the White House is the height of white privilege—the privilege of those least hurt by that fascist fuck. The obsession with civility and decorum in the United States is bipartisan and white.
Rep. Green is a Black man. And the few Democrats who, subsequent to his protest walked out of Trump’s speech, were mostly Black and people of colour. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Black woman who like Green represents Texas, was among those who walked out. Unlike the white women Democrats who wore pink ostensibly in protest during Trump’s speech but to decided to stay put, Crockett and those who walked out wore black t-shirts with messages such as “Good Trouble,” “Resist,” and in Crockett’s case, a t-shirt honouring Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman in Congress, along with Chisholm’s famous catchline, "unbought and unbossed."
"He's up there, he's spewing all kinds of nonsense and bullshit, let me just be real, and we weren't just going to sit for that shit," Crockett told her followers in an Instagram reel.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to FEMINIST GIANT to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.