Whether Biden wins or not, Trump voters should not be our priority or our concern. They’re in the bed they made for themselves; let them worry about getting out of it.

Instead protect the people Trump voters want to abuse, enslave, harm, and kill. https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/1322594733894569984

However you treat Trump voters in the case of a Biden win, never ever ever listen to their opinions or their desires or their policy proposals or take them seriously on any matter ever again, and take careful steps to make sure they never have power to pursue their awful desires.

I draw a pretty hard line on supporting white supremacist fascists, if this is divisive, good.

Hey what if we just all finally agreed that the behavior of toxic abusive people was their own responsibility, and not the responsibility of their targets, and that establishing boundaries with toxic people was actually appropriate and good, what about that? https://twitter.com/nahanni_/status/1322716017806790656

I’m so done with making our priority finding compromise with unrepentant abusive assholes. They are not the center of our national gravity. They can come join us in a world of empirical reality and human decency anytime. We mustn’t go to them, and we don’t need their approval.

There’s no way to establish community with people who want to destroy community.

You can’t create solutions with those who desire the problem.

Abusers are always welcome to rejoin community but never on their terms, and the work they must do to rejoin it is theirs to do.

What community do I make with someone who will harm and exclude and marginalize and kill the trans and gay and Muslim and Black and brown and disabled and sick people in my community?

I will instead work without them to make a community that won’t do such things to anybody.

They can join this community the moment they want to join—which will involve no longer actively participating in an effort to destroy it.

After, there’s the work any abuser needs to engage in to restore themselves to those they’ve abused. That’s their work. We have other work.

What an abuser wants is this: reconciliation without reparation. License to continue the abuse, along with forgiveness for having done it.

Reconciliation without reparation. Watch for it.

The work of reconciliation is conviction and confession and repentance and reparation.

Awareness of wrong, declaration of wrong, alignment with real change, and paying the real price of the real change.

That's the work of reconciliation.

We can keep the channels open but we can't do the work.

They don't want to do the work of reconciliation. They expect it to be done for them.

Doing the work for them aligns you with abuse.

You can't forgive an abuser for the abuse they've done, on behalf of the person they abused. To do so is in itself abuse.

It's reconciliation without reparation. It's unacceptable. It's the way we've done things my whole life.

To expect or force an abused person to reconcile with their abuser is itself abuse.

To do so while they are still under the persistent threat of that abuse is itself grotesque abuse.

It's reconciliation without reparation.

End our unacceptable culture of abuse and enablement.

Trump voters are not marginalized under-represented people. Their votes count for more. Their leaders get installed with a minority of votes. They have an entire media ecosystem devoted to delivering their chosen alternate reality that supports their abusive worldview.

These are the most flagrantly over-heard and over-represented people in national history, and what they want is basically a national murder/suicide.

They don't need your voice. Don't lend it. Do the good work that's needed instead.

Refuse reconciliation without reparation.

Oh, and one more thing ... I've been talking about reconciliation, which is the work of the abuser and only the abuser to do.

That's not forgiveness. Forgiveness is another matter, and it's something for abused people to work out.

We don't get to mandate how they work it out.

Forgiveness is not a reward that abusive people deserve, even if they do the work of reconciliation.

The reward of doing the work of reconciliation is simply no longer being an abusive person.

They may not be forgiven.

That's not your business, if you weren't the one abused.

Forgiveness is something an abused person can do to heal themselves. It's a good thing, and healing. But it exists for the benefit of the abused, not the abuser.

The hard work of reconciliation exists for the benefit of the abuser. It is its own reward.

And one OTHER thing...

Neither forgiveness nor reconciliation is the same as restoration.

What an abuser destroyed may never be restored. That may be part of the price to pay, in the hard work of reconciliation.

That's not up to us. It's up to those who suffered abuse, who should be our priority.

An abused person may forgive their abuser but choose to maintain clear and permanent boundaries with them.

That, too, can be part of the healing.

Healing should be our priority.

Not forgiving abuse on behalf of others.

Not reconciliation without reparation.

Do the work.

If you'd like (even) more on the topic, I recommend this essay I wrote in 2017.

"Most of all, an abusive person wants to be the priority. To the philosophical question “what is the most important thing?” the abusive person answers—“I am the ONLY thing.” http://www.armoxon.com/2017/09/bubbles-8-change-locks.html