Opening with a quote is a standard essay structure. Because this is the internet, I’ll open with a tweet.
My first reaction to this was to agree. I thought he was talking about the racists and white supremacists and the ones who relegate every person who isn’t a citizen of the United States to subhuman status (the ones who nodded along when President Trump talked about “shithole” countries, knowing in their self-described unmatched wisdom that every other country excepting perhaps some of the European nations were “shitholes”.)
I’ve since thought about the tweet more deeply. I still agree with it, but I believe I was wrong about the groups it was referencing. Or, if not wrong, I was at least neglecting the largest of the unredeemable groups. Those are the dedicated followers.
These are the ones who, knowing that they are going to support Trump in his decisions, wait for explanations of why they should do so. Unlike the prior groups who want the Kurds dead for the sin of being non-white or non-American, these people want the Kurds dead for no reason other than the fact that Trump seems to want it.
You will be able to distinguish them by their words.
The Syrian Kurds have been ushered to slaughter by a President who betrayed them. This group is targeted by the Turks, ostensibly because of their ties to the PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party), but in reality over land. The Kurds, whether in Syria, Iraq or Turkey, want an autonomous state, and Erdogan wants to expand his territory into an Islamic caliphate, not give part of it away to a bunch of Christians.
The Kurds have been our allies in the fight against ISIS and have been doing the bulk of the frontline fighting. This has been the case for years. During that time they have demonstrated themselves to be excellent allies, even as other groups with whom we partnered in the area have betrayed us. This, despite some initial concern about the Kurds.
It was those Kurdistan Worker’s Party ties. When we were first contemplating joining with them, their long history of being hard left was a concern. Lacking a better alternative, we worked alongside them anyway. Over the course of years we developed a trust, as it became apparent that they were very willing to abandon communism. Their uprising and terrorism had been instigated by the Soviets to undermine then-secular and Westernized Turkey; after the fall of the Soviet Union they had been steadily shifting away from Leftism, with the drive for a homeland eventually being the only common trait between the old Kurds and the modern Kurds.
We watched as our cautious alliance grew strong. We were performing the very task that many define as Americanism: spreading the cause of freedom and personal liberty throughout the world. People who had previously sworn allegiance to socialism and dictatorship were instead embracing individual human rights. Terrorist activity which had been occurring since the 1970s had diminished greatly even as Kurdish encampments continued to be slaughtered by the Turks.
These are the people Trump has sold out. And, after this betrayal, there were people who were not willing to do the most casual of research about dead children and the pledges of Turkish officials to cause more of them. Instead, they waited to hear what they should be thinking and saying, getting their marching orders from their punditry masters.
These are not necessarily the evil people I first assumed Wilson was describing. It’s worse, because these are people who eagerly facilitate evil. These are the team cheerleaders, the ones for whom “liberal tears” or “Democrat anger” are somehow more important than the results which caused them.
And, to again reference the tweet, I’m not even classifying all of them as unredeemable, merely the ones who are, in Rick Wilson’s words, “gleeful”. They’re not simply open to direction, they are giddy with the idea of focusing their contempt.
They are not redeemable because they truly don’t understand that human lives are more important than a momentary surge of pleasure at a perceived team win. Faced with a callous murder of every one of their friends and neighbors, they would anxiously await an explanation which catered to their entrenched worldview.
They’re not redeemable because there’s nothing there to redeem. They are empty vessels, automatons who mistakenly believe they are thinkers. They will be the ones regurgitating the drivel about the Kurds being communists who only worked with us out of convenience, ignoring history and without giving any consideration as to why, after we had other regional allies defect to Assad or walk away from fighting, the Kurds continued to stand beside us, shedding blood and sweat and lives in pursuit of our goals.
Swap out “the Kurds” with “Israel”, with “Greece”, with “Great Britain”, with “California”, with “Texas” and their reactions would be the same. They care only about themselves, the team, and their Trump…. not always in that order.
