Letter to a Non-Nazi Still on the Sidelines, Doug Tarnopol
Keep sitting in your house like a cringing coward and hope this doesn’t happen to you. It probably won’t because you are fully prepared to do anything these Nazis demand. Your plan is pretty much just to tongue the asses of your children’s destroyers till the day you die. If you need to beg them for the privilege, from your knees, you will. If you need to turn in a friend, spouse, child, sibling, parent to “Keep Safe,” you will. They already fully own your worthless ass.
You love it. You think about how they are laughing at you, and you love it. But not as much as you love how with every passing second of every day that you do nothing, you are proving to them that their total contempt for you is well-founded. You enjoy that as much as Glenn Greenwald loves sucking on a prostitute’s foot while being spat on. Just embrace it—don’t get all judgmental on yourself, now!
The issue is how to get away with it so you don’t get hassled. I am here to help.
It will be surprisingly easy to avoid any responsibility or accountability. Above all, you will continue to launder your inaction to yourself as “Protecting My Children” even though you know damn well these Nazis have already killed their future. (Carbon, to name only one thing.) You will thus make your betrayal the height of morality, gratefully joining in mutual congratulation with the millions of likeminded weaklings that make up the Home of the Brave, pretending that no one had any other choice in the matter. Because the children!
It’s a smart move: if everyone is guilty, no one is, and anyone who disagrees will have long since been taken care of, one way or the other. I think you’ll be good!
For now, though, attack anyone who resists and from as high a moral plane as you can muster. God knows people have faults aplenty; won’t be hard to use that, person by person, to distract yourself from your conscience, if that’s even necessary anymore. You can always try blaming them for bringing this on all of us. It’s not MAGA’s fault, God knows, and it sure as fuck is not the fault of sessile cowards like you. That leaves the Radicals, especially those who gave you every opportunity to gut up for twenty fucking years. I’d pathologize them as much as you can. That exonerates you…uh…somehow. (I think it’s most effective to adopt a tone of mature sadness and concern. But you do you.)
Or better yet, grey-rock them. Pretend you are the victim of the “abuse” of being justly called out for being a complete coward and fraud. Constantly reinforce that in your little morality-carwash social groups. It shouldn’t take long to mutually brainwash. (Am I too late with this advice? Am I naive for thinking any criticism can penetrate to the point that you and your ilk would ever think they need a morality carwash? Probably.)
You have learned from MAGA well: Swift Boat, deny, ignore, attack, decry... Whatever protects and valorizes your ego and id. You’ll be fine, dude. You essentially are MAGA. Already. Before any real pressure.
By doing nothing—for ten years—you have been MAGA’s absolutely indispensable ally. They couldn’t have done this without you, your cowardice, your sociopathic selfishness, your toxic positivity—your weakness. But you’ll get away with it all, don’t you worry!
One last thing may reasonably still cause worry, though: that feeling you had when you first held your child, weeping, when you told yourself in a language deeper than language that you’d happily die for them.
Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that! First off, you didn’t mean it. Heat of the moment. You can’t be held responsible. If you haven’t already fully suppressed that memory, that feeling, you will. I mean, sure, you love ‘em—c’mon!—but fighting for them? Too inconvenient and risky.
So, fuck ‘em. 🤷♀️ Shit happens, dude.
And who the fuck ever said that when it comes to their kids, parents should have skin in the game? It’s just that kind of Woke coddling that made Good go crazy and try to kill the poor ICE officer in the first place, the fucking bitch! (See how easy it’ll be? Is?)
If all else fails, lean into your envy of their youth. You are Mrs. Robinson slapping her daughter for being young, the brat. Just in your mind when that pesky feeling arises. I mean, what the actual fuck have those ungrateful, spoiled little welfare-case-cost-centers ever done for you?
But, always on the lookout for yourself, I can see you are rightly concerned about potential blowback. And frankly a little insulted I thought you needed any help bullshitting yourself. (Sorry—naive!)
So, how can you get what you need out of them despite your betrayal?
Again, not to worry. Why? Because they won’t want to confront the awful truth about you. You can be damn sure of that. The horror you helped create will protect you. Talk about efficiency!
If any of those brats do get uppity, you can probably count on leveraging your relationship to get off scot-free. They’ll probably still show up to ease your passing in myriad ways despite you not lifting a finger for their future.
If not, manipulate them. Use whatever levers work—guilt, love, filial piety, duty—to dominate them and get what you want. Art of the deal.
If you are leaving money, all the better! It’ll be a nightmare in 30-odd years, so that leverage will increase. You needn’t threaten; it’s automatic. But if someone mouths off, that’s your trump card, as it were.
In the worst-case scenario, mind you; most won’t ever make a peep.
So, honestly, sit tight. You’re good!
What’s on Netflix?