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Feels like somebody needs to explain this, so I'll try: You know the "racist family member" trope? That's why we have Trump & all the other extreme-rightwing problems in the world.
Yes, really.
Tropes exist because they spark recognition; when you use one, everybody knows what you mean, probably from personal experience. The "racist family member" experience everyone recognizes isn't just that of knowing such a person - it's being at a social gathering with them, having them
1/
make everybody else uncomfortable & nobody telling them to shut the fuck up. They were probably even invited back next time.
The recognizable situation is that of an Asshole being able to enter any room & ruin everyone else's day with zero repercussions.
Meanwhile, if anyone did speak up, even if just to voice polite disagreement, the Asshole would get all riled up & then the person who spoke up would be accused of ruining the mood. Maybe even excluded from the next gathering
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so as not to anger the Asshole.
As a result, Assholes know they can asshole without consequences & absolutely do so on purpose. Again, everyone has been at that table with family, at work etc. & seen the smug look on their face as they pull the trigger, daring anyone to stop them.
Simply put: While rampant, deliberate assholery has not been socially policed at all, pushing back against it carries a social death sentence.
This is why even now, with all that's going on in the world
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& with the evidence of harm on an unpredecented scale right in everyone's face, anyone even trying to speak up will almost always do so apologetically, carefully swaddling what should be an unmistakeable & rightful condemnation of assholery in weasel words & preemptive bowing.
- and then the speaker will bend over even further & apologize even more when faced with a just as inevitable barrage of accusations of ruining the mood, thinly veiled as questions.
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In essence, the only reason They
were able to succeed in digging up the world's tiny minority of rampant Assholes, weaponize them into making us turn on ourselves & using the manufactured conflict to seize power - basically giving racist granny a bullhorn & then stealing all the silverware under cover of the ensuing chaos - is that Assholes were & remain the most socially protected, coddled minority in world history.
Maybe it's time we did something about that...?
/end
@jwcph I speak up right away now, you know what has changed? People are less shocked, even ready for me.
@CartyBoston Exactly. In my previous job I was called to my boss' office & chided several times for speaking up & "starting a conflict" (it wasn't a bad workplace but casual transmisogyny, homophobia etc. is fucking everywhere) - but I also noticed that my colleagues would start to police themselves & think about what they were saying to avoid triggering pushback, which I counted as a considerable success. They've probably lapsed now that I'm gone, but hopefully some effect lingers 
I love every word of this thread.
Honestly. Well put. Thank you!
@oliver Thank you right back! 
@jwcph
Maybe it's the British apologist disease, or Don't rock the boat, Don't make a scene, Be polite or just Don't stare disease.
We should be innoculated but we seem just to be weakened by it.
My hope is us forlock tugging peasants recognize the harm these 'special' people do & rise up - a bit at least - and meet the challenge of justice and fairness and take their power back for ourselves.
Reverence and admiration of these people who steal civilization's best bits from us needs to end.
@donty Reverence for the rich & undeserving certainly goes hand-in-hand with this, you're right about that.
What I think we all need to think about is "Don't be silent". Even if you don't want to be the person rocking the boat, speak up if you support the person who does, right there & then, in the room. Walking up to someone afterwards & covertly telling them you agree is worse than doing nothing.
Choosing neutrality in the face of assholery is siding with the Asshole.
@jwcph @donty I think this is a lot of it - in the UK we are brought up to think that being polite and not making a fuss is the most important thing, so people just tut to themselves and say nothing and the arsehole gets to spread their bile and recruit the people vulnerable to this stuff.
In my latter years I've become the person who will call out this stuff straight away, because someone has to and most people won't, and also because I don't want to be complicit, I don't want any bystanders to think I agree with this crap. And pretty much every time I do a couple of people will then join in and agree, or tell me later that they are glad I spoke up because they didn't feel able to or were afraid of conflict.
@catameringue I think we can agree that Germans are not brought up to be polite (well, unless they are non-men dealing with men, but still) - and we have the same problem. This has been an encouraging thread - I will take up my old habit of speaking out, no matter what, again. @jwcph @donty
@lipow @catameringue @jwcph @donty It's not, unfortunately, just a local cultural phenomenon in certain countries. It's the same here in Denmark - we've polited ourselves into this mess. If you objected even mildly to 'casual' (for example) racism or sexism or misogyny, the person who voiced the objection was scolded and shamed, not the perpetrators of the -isms. It's getting a bit better now, at least. People are speaking up in more everyday ways.
@jwcph I read this and thought back to the time when we were four exchange students; two male, two female (presenting) and one of they guys was the type
who'd flaunt that he broke rules, complained whenever the world didn't work how he thought it did
and sexually harassed me just at that level where he could always pretend I just imagined things
and all I felt I could do was tell the others I'm not going if he's there, and demand somebody not his target sit between us in lectures
@jwcph and that reminds me of my incredulity reading how some peope use the report system on a social media website to gauge what content will be tolerated
thinking back, that guy, others like him, other people with similar assholery like the former coworker who'd just recently begun working there and started spouting hatred agains trans people
I think all of them deliberately tested out what kind of behaviour was tolerated or welcomed in a new social group?
Re-framing:
The one causing the problem is the one making the problematic statement (the Asshole), not the one calling it out.
@jwcph ooooh yeah, this happens, I've been vocal to toxic people in my table top groups (so many times) and thus, ostracized from those group. Every time.
I see the cult of personality and the good times be tied to these folk.
I look at my life now and keep owning that since they are still in the groups and friends are posting and sharing, that I must be the person that's the problem.
Because these social groups that embrace the toxic person exist in a public and shared forum, I am no longer embraced in those spaces either.
Privately, old friends in these groups will say they miss hanging out, but unless I purposely reach out there are no invitations.
...
Admittedly they infinitely more entertaining than the guy that gripes all the time, and unfortunately unaddressed emotional issues on my part way more than gripe.
@jwcph Sadly one particular group is the group with the exclusive contract to run rpg events hosted by big company. A group I volunteered for since 2001 for pats on the back admission and a half of a bed in a double room in exchange for 24 hours of time over 4 days 2 times a year. (Oh and a couple of books)
At the time the meltdown was a little cathartic.
But the guy that runs this group, turned it right around and pointed the blame cannon at my face. As well as anyone else that had issues on a forum.
It made me realize that despite making myself available for around 15 years and bringing an A game to the folks sitting at my seat
I had zero value as a person to the core of the cult of personality that I was a part of.
Ever
@tricethetraveller That fucking sucks 
@jwcph I hear you. I think it's normalcy bias in motion. Everyone just wants to let it slide, not agitate the asshole so we can quickly return to "normal". Anyone who takes on the asshole causes a "scene" and kills the "mood." Shame on you, you know what he's like, he'll never change, why can't you just let it go and move on, keep quiet and be the bigger person.
@darren - and then there's nazis & everybody is wondering where that came from...
@jwcph Had to leave my home city because I couldn't just sit back and tolerate assholes in general