History doesn’t just “happen” in a progressive manner. Progress is MADE to happen by people doing the hard work. And plenty of people would very much like to see that hard work undone. The Iran example is great, in that it shows how even when people rise up against brutality, it can still get co-opted and go off-track. The Iranian revolution was a broad-based one that was stolen by a different set of reactionary forces. It was not inevitable that the country would become the country it is today. That revolution could have had a much different outcome. Contingency matters when we’re talking about historical processes, because it tells us that other paths were possible, and are still possible, good and bad.
Some people just want to ‘win the argument,’ even when they are clearly talking out of their ass.
That the country (and even the world at large) is slowly shifting to be less White and straight and more diverse overall is beside the point: that a small segment of very vocal bigots is trying very hard to drag our entire society back to the dark ages.
And if the rest of us don’t fight like hell, there’s a non-zero chance they might succeed.
For far too long I was a completely inactive progressive. It took nazis on a train playing audio of machine gun fire to other passengers to wake me up. We have to fight for and support each other cause the arse stains of the world are getting far too comfy at the moment.
