Look, it's not lost on me that a lot of people don't want to hear what I'm saying in this infographic. Some of you will read the words "liberal establishment" and think I mean you, instead of the politicians you vote for, the for-profit media that (selectively) informs your opinions, and the rich people who own both of those groups. Some of you won't be ready to hear it because you're still operating under polite fictions that conceal what America really is, who it really works for, and how that work is actually accomplished. Finally, even some of you who acknowledge what I'm telling you, will insist that now is not the time for this discussion, and our entire focus must be on stopping Trump and the fascist America First movement so things can "go back to normal."

Frankly, I'm not really sure I can help the first two groups I mentioned at all, or at least in the short term. You folks clearly need to get yourselves a library card and start reading, with a particular focus on American history, class hierarchies in our society, and how capitalism actually functions. It's probably going to shock the shit out of you to learn that we are not a society of equals under the law and America doesn't really work the way your middle school civics class told you it did; I do not envy you the mental vertigo that's gonna cause, but I will say that it's better to understand how the world you live in actually works and how power is exercised, even if it's horrifying, than to keep pretending things are drastically better and more egalitarian than they actually are. Free market fundamentalism is not a humane ideology, capitalist extraction is facilitated by the threat and application of violence, and a "democracy" where rich people own everything, control our politicians, and dictate the laws we live under while existing far above them, is not actually "democratic" at all. Those are just the facts, and when you get done yelling at me because you don't want to believe that, I'll still be here waiting for you with open arms and a burning desire to make the better world you thought we lived in, a reality.

For those of you in the "now is not the time" camp however, I'd just like to ask you a simple question. Given that folks just like you and I have been having this same discussion since the Nixon administration, and "let's go back to normal" has won out every time in the larger public consciousness, how would you say that strategy is working out for us so far? As Americans, we went back to normal after Nixon, and ended up with Reagan, before we went back to normal and got the Bush-Cheney administration for our troubles, which in turn lead to another period of "going back to normal" before that normal handed a turnkey dictatorship to Trump, twice. All the while, the extraction never stopped, the imperialism never stopped, the police state only grew larger, corporate power and wealth inequality vastly increased, organized labor was decimated, our civil rights were eroded, and oligarchic power crept in to seize control of nearly every aspect of our lives anyone could possibly turn a profit from. You can't even really argue that going back to a liberal capitalist "normal" improved social equality, made our society more democratic, or halted the rise of fascism because we just watched a bunch of billionaires capitalize on the racist, patriarchal, and fundamentalist attitudes of seventy-five or so million of the worst people in America to install a bloviating reality TV show nazi as the de facto King of America. Are you seriously gonna tell me that a liberal capitalist "normal" that has resulted in the planet being on fire while billions of lives hang in the balance, politically empowered fascists seizing control of "democracies" all across the Pig Empire, and some k-head 4chan nazi controlling the political discourse of like half the planet, is working out for labor class people?

Whether you like it or not, the bipartisan fascist police state that protects oligarchs and projects corporate power, is the same fascist police state Trump is using to protect and install a fascist political order. The same racism, marginalization, and callous indifference to human life required to make capitalist extraction possible, is fueling popular support behind the rise of de facto fascist dictatorships in the Pig Empire. The same national security state created to fight an endless "war on terror" is now being used to hunt down and silence opposition to Trump's fascist agenda. The chickens have come home to roost, and an unholy union of capitalism, imperialism, and hierarchal class warfare that is all completely "normal" in our society, has given birth to the very same fascist monster that threatens to destroy everything labor class people care about today. Every time we listen to people who still want "a little" fascism and "go back to normal," the nazis lick their wounds for a while and then come back stronger.

Aren't you tired of "normal" yet?