re: #185 Renaissance_Man

I’m not convinced that having such elements on the show makes it a good thing. Hear me out here.

I understand that many of us here, and people like Sara Gilbert, see a show where racist Trumpers encounter such normal things as interracial marriage, foreign neighbours, and so on, and where the show resolves in a relatively decent way, as a good thing - an opportunity to show these things in a positive light, perhaps even to teach Trumpers (the audience) that such encounters can be humanising and normal. I get that many people on the show probably believe that, and were trying to do that. From that angle, perhaps a show like that was a good thing.

But the problem is, that’s not how it works. Watching Roseanne isn’t going to make a single Trumper more decent. Trumpers are already completely able to have total logical disconnects in their head and at all times in their lives. They can have good relations with their Mexican neighbour and still cheer for violence against Mexican ‘animals’ and for taking their kids away. They can have a daughter who has an abortion and still picket abortion clinics and scream in the face of other women. They can work on a show with their liberal friends and coworkers and happily go through episodes of normal, human interaction with gays and foreigners and still pose as Hitler baking Jew cookies and spread anti-Semitism and racism. The premise of Roseanne - take Trumpers and portray them as normal, everyday people with the potential for good, positive interactions - makes everyone feel better. It makes us feel better for doing outreach, and for treating Trumpers as normal people just like us. It makes Trumpers feel better because they see people like them on TV, having the same interactions they do, being accepted into normal society, and still getting to be as hateful in private and on the internet as they like.

It’s the same premise that is pushed every day in the NYT and the media in general - treat Trumpers as normal, treat their racism and hate as just a political point of view, and as long as we don’t talk about the things we disagree on, we can all be friends. And in private, you can be as liberally liberal as you libs are, and Trumpers can spread anti-Semitism, racism, and vote for monsters, but that’s not what’s important - what’s important is that we can all come together.

As GDF says, politics is not just a polite disagreement between white people. A show like Roseanne pretends it is. Portraying the human side of Trumpers seems like a good thing, but it’s really not. We think it is because we feel a responsibility to reach out to the other side, and they think it is because they want to be accepted as they are, full of hate, rather than ostracised. But all it does is allow us to gloss over their hatred and normalise it. I don’t need to see their human side. I already know they can act like humans in public. It’s how so many of them went hidden in normal society for so long.

That’s exactly why I’m not ready to make nice with Trumpers. Well said.