"Look what you made me do! I had to quote Hitler to prove how evil you are!" -Moms4Liberty, basically in Those Public Entries

I want to show you one of my favorite scene from the Indiana Jones series.

Let me direct your attention to one particular bit of dialogue:

Elsa: Is that what you think of me? I believe in the Grail, not the Swastika!
Indy: You stood up to be counted with the enemies of everything the Grail stands for! Who gives a damn what you think?!

I think about that exchange, and Indy’s response, a lot. Since 2016, I’ve thought about it almost daily. Especially within the context of “very fine people […] on many sides.”

…No. There are no “very fine people” among Nazis. There are no “very fine people” among white supremacist militias. There are no “very fine people” who participated in the January 6th insurrection. You cannot claim to be a good person and side with evil. Like Indy said, if you stand up to be counted with the enemies of your country, the enemies of your neighbors, the enemies of good itself? Then, not even gonna pretend to be sorry, fuck you. You are either on the side of good or you are on the side of evil. There is no middle ground. In less polarized and fraught times, maybe. But this is not that time.

And don’t even think about hitting me with that “only a Sith deals in absolutes” bullshit, either. Because it is wrong. Sometimes, you do have to take a stand. Sometimes, you do have to be unequivocal. And when it comes to the current political landscape, I’m sorry, the center simply does not exist anymore. This is not the fault of “antifa,” this is not the fault of the radical left, this is not the fault of LGBTQ+ people winning our right to marry, this is not the fault of drag queen story hours at libraries.

It’s the fault of the far right.

Argue with me all you want on this, but at least provide sources. Decent ones, okay? NPR and better.

…Y’all. I’m fuckin’ tired. Maybe the Atlantic is right when they say that the far right’s victories are how it will die. But you know what? When far-right movements die, they have a habit of taking the countries they conquered with them.

If only we’d listened to that movie, directed by a Jewish guy and starring a Jewish actor, about how the Nazis were evil and it didn’t matter if you didn’t “really” agree with them, so long as you worked and broke bread with them, when it came out in 1989.

Last updated June 22, 2023