By Eleni Kontou
TW: rape, racism, racial slurs, sexism, misogyny, ableism, anti-LGBTQ+, xenophobia, islamophobia, fat phobia, abortion, transphobia
This is something talked about quite a lot recently, with us ‘snowflakes’ being told that we are too sensitive and that ‘politics shouldn’t affect your relationships’. We deal with it on the daily, but enough is enough. I can’t be your friend if you vote for something that harms other people, I can’t be your friend if you vote selfishly with no thought for those discriminated against, I can’t be your friend if you think that voting Tory is down to politics and not just your shit morality and selfishness.
I’ve had enough of people telling me to ‘calm down, you have your opinion, I have mine’. Yes, everybody has differing opinions and I accept that, what I won’t accept is somebody voting for a party that is known for its lack of morality and compassion, a party who don’t care for the increase in mental health problems - giving mental health charities £105 million less in 2016/17 than was given in 2011/12, meaning that as mental health problems are on the rise, the funding given by the government is dropping. With their austerity measures, it has seen more food banks in the UK than McDonalds’, proving that a Tory government cares for the rich, and the rich only, don’t be fooled. On top of all this, the party is inherently racist, sexist, homophobic, and Islamophobic, catering to members who make comments such as ‘watermelon smiles’, comparing homosexuality to bestiality, ‘just pat her on the bottom and send her on the way’, or we have all heard the ‘letterboxes’ comment about women wearing the burqa - he then backed this up by saying it was a ‘natural reaction’. So how can I be friends with somebody who can vote for a party with no morality? Somebody who will take ‘natural reaction’ as a reasonable excuse for such prejudice? Somebody who will support a party against me.
Adding to all this, here are some other comments made by members of the Tory party: When asked about the Grenfell Tower victims, Jacob Rees-Mogg said that they lacked ‘common sense’ for not fleeing the building. It just shows the level of privilege that this party and its members have. They can’t even show compassion towards a tragedy, they can’t even understand that the issue of the Grenfell Tower was the budget cladding that was used to build it. How can you vote for a party who can’t and won’t put in any effort to understand the real world? But sure, blame it on the people who warned the council of their concerns. What about when Dominic Raab complained that ‘men are getting a raw deal’, and calling feminists ‘obnoxious bigots’. This is yet another privileged asshole who thinks that being called out equates, or rather is more important than not having control of your own body, or not being able to walk alone at night for fear of being assaulted, or being paid less than men doing the same job as you, or having to endure endless sexist comments and expectations just for being a woman. But no, of course a wealthy, straight, white man has it worse than everybody else, of course he does. He doesn’t have to deal with the looming statistic that 98% of rapists walk free, and that’s just the reported ones. 1 out of 5 women will experience sexual assault in their lifetime, compared to 1 in 25 men. There have also been cases where blackface is considered entirely appropriate by the Tories, Desmond Swayne defended blackface as being ‘a bit of fun’. It is disgusting to think that people keep voting for a party that is so engrossed in racism that they don’t even try to educate themselves and make a change.
When it came to the same-sex marriage vote in 2013 for England and Wales, the Tory party took a neutral stance. How can one take a stance of neutrality when asked about whether to give somebody human rights? Out of 301 Tory MP’s in 2013, 41% of Tories opposed, not including the 13.6% who refused to vote or didn’t turn up (which is essentially voting against and not caring enough to vote in matters that don’t affect their privileged asses). To have 54.6% of your MP’s opposing equality is a disgrace. This is why I can’t be friends with people who vote Tory, because how can anybody support a party when this is their history and their present? I get that all political parties have faults, such as Labour’s anti-Semitism, but in comparison to Labour, their leading rivals, the Tory party’s stats don’t hold up well at all. Out of 257 Labour MP’s, 84.4% voted for marriage equality. Doesn’t that tell you an awful lot? Now I’m not a supporter of any political party, but there is no way in hell that I can ever accept somebody voting for a Tory government knowing that their party is a melting pot of hate, racism, sexism, homophobia, and islamophobia. I understand that all political parties have scandals, of course they do, the majority of them are privileged and have grown up that way, but in comparison, the Tories are hateful. The Tory party’s scandal is much more common and large scale than Labour’s for example. It comes down to, who has the most morality and the Tories are near the very bottom of that list.
One of the primary problems that I see in people who vote for a Tory government is the discrimination against refugees and the lack of compassion for them. It’s ingrained in society to believe that this is ‘our country’ despite the fact that we are animals on this planet like any other, who are we to decide who moves from one part of the Earth to the other, but more importantly can you seriously be so xenophobic that you are against allowing people fleeing from a country of war to go somewhere that their lives are less at risk? The current largest group of refugees are those that have been fleeing the civil conflict in Syria since 2011. A conflict that has been aided by the UK in their sending of missiles to Syria, an action that has most definitely provided anything but help and stability. So how can anybody turn down giving help to those who need it? Especially when they are innocent people who are simply seeking a better life somewhere that is not a warzone. Many Tory voters will argue their innocence and accuse refugees of all sorts, but they are fear tactics riddled in xenophobia. The real evil is already in the West, it lies in the selfishness and privilege at its core, within the type of people who vote for the Tory party. I don’t care if you don’t agree with the racism, xenophobia, or homophobia in the Tory party, if you vote for them, it means that you can turn a blind eye to hatred in order to vote for a party who you think will benefit you. If you vote Tory, you have the privilege to ignore prejudice and discrimination. If you vote Tory, it means that your morality values the possibility of paying more taxes over other peoples’ wellbeing.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, of the awful ways that the Tory party has treated, and continues to treat the fight for equality and human rights. They are so privileged and selfish that they lack any sort of compassion, and voting for them condones their actions. So, no Karen I can’t drop my morality to be friends with somebody who can even think about voting for a party as disgusting as the Tories, and I have no regrets.
The same goes for people who support Trump and all of his ignorance, racism, and homophobia. If you look to Trump even as a comedic character for entertainment, you need to assess your privilege. This man is not funny, he spreads hate and violence that causes destruction throughout the US. Hate and violence that always somehow falls on ‘minorities’, and I wonder why that is? Maybe because Trump himself is a racist, homophobic, sexist, ableist, and privileged asshole. We all know where he stands, we all know his beliefs and opinions. He is outright hateful and ignorant about everybody who is not a straight, white, wealthy, cis man. Yet, he received over 70.5 million votes in the recent elections, showing that despite Biden’s win, there is still a heck of a lot of people who lack compassion. And yes, Biden isn’t a saint, but you know things are f***** when you find yourself saying ‘I don’t like Biden, but to get Trump out I’d vote for him’. Despite Biden winning the election, it is still a loss to see that so many people in the US voted for hate. In order to defend their taxes (which only make a difference to those earning over $400,000), they decided to sacrifice morality. They saw homophobia, racism, sexism etc. As something easily sacrificed in order to cater for their own selfish needs, they saw money as more important than human rights. Yet those who voted Biden did not support him, they feared another four years under Trump’s presidency. When you look at the reasonings, one half of the country voted for somebody through fear of the other, and the other half voted for somebody because they’re scared of losing a little bit of money and their guns. The privilege really jumped out. To see videos with tears of relief at Biden’s win, over videos of happiness tells you all that you need to know.
According to Trump, he is the ‘least racist person there is’, his racist history is long, but so are his actions and comments since entering the White House. After white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Trump comments that ‘both’ sides were to blame? Really? BIPOC are to blame for white supremacists protesting their existence and resorting to violence? He even went as far enough to say that there were ‘some very fine people’ amongst the white supremacists. How can one honestly look at all the s*** Donald Trump has said and vote for that? He also claimed that people who came to the US from Haiti ‘all have AIDS’, and commented ‘why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?’. It is clear that under Trump’s presidency and while discrimination is large in the US, that the US itself is a shithole country itself. He has told black and brown members of Congress to ‘go back’ to their own countries, he nicknamed coronavirus ‘kung flu’, he stated that Kamala Harris, a black Asian American woman (now the first woman Vice President of the United States) that she ‘doesn’t meet the requirements’, he has called Mexican people ‘rapists’, he said the words ‘laziness is a trait in blacks’, at a Jewish coalition he said he was ‘a negotiator like you folks’, and he called for a ban on Muslims coming to the US. This is truly just a few cases on a very very long list. Donald Trump is a racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic, anti-Semite piece of trash and if you vote for a man who can utter such disgusting words and believe in such awful things, then you’re not worth any more than he is. A vote for him condones those beliefs and I will not and cannot be friends with anybody who doesn’t take these types of comments as dealbreakers as well as all of the other awful things Trump has done.
Trump does not respect women, despite over 55% of white women voting for him this election, it is clear that he does not respect women, despite Trump calling his comments ‘locker room talk’. To start, we have all heard his vulgar ‘grab them by the pussy’ comment when talking about sexually harassing women. He even tweeted about sexual assault in the military, saying ‘What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?’ His lack of self-control and his condoning of sexual assault against women is something that no compassionate person could ever condone. He has called women ‘pieces of ass’, and ‘a person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10’, he told a lawyer called Elizabeth Beck that she was ‘disgusting’ for pumping breast milk, he made the comment ‘fat, ugly face of hers’ about Rosie O’Donnell, he said that ‘there has to be some form of punishment’ for people who have abortions, he even made a joke about dating his own daughter, he slut-shamed Angelina Jolie, and he also suggested that successful women are only successful because of their ‘sex appeal’. And although not only women have abortions, Trump wanted to limit the abortions that take place with his policies this year. These are just a few of the chauvinistic and sexist comments that this man has spout and continues to. If you can vote for a man who wants to take away somebody’s right to their own body then I don’t want anything to do with you.
Another disgrace to add to his vulgar track record is his ableist comments and actions. During the 2016 election campaign, Trump frequently made fun of Hillary Clinton’s health, including pretending to faint at a rally in front of his laughing supporters. He frequently promoted conspiracy that questioned illnesses that Clinton may have such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s in order to state his obvious belief that Clinton was not fit to lead. As though having epilepsy or Parkinson’s makes you unworthy. He also fat-shames which can be seen as ableist behaviour, his comment about Rosie O’Donnell that I mentioned is evidence of this. There is a video of Trump making fun of reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has a disabled right arm, by waving his arms around in a mocking fashion. Before doing this he said ‘now the poor guy, you ought to see this guy’. He has also used the word ‘retarded’ to call a deaf contestant on the Celebrity Apprentice. It is disgusting to think that anybody condones this sort of hatred and behaviour, but all those who voted for him did.
Trump doesn’t have a great track record with the LGBTQ+ community at all, this is evident in his support of state-funded adoption agencies that turn away LGBTQ+ couples on ‘religious grounds’. The only defence Trump and his supporters have is that on occasion he will put a tweet of acknowledgement of pride month. Trump tried to ban trans people from joining the military, he even refused to support the equality act. An act that makes sure to include LGBTQ+ people in the current equality act that ensures civil rights protections for race, disability etc. He has also appointed judges and a Vice President with extremely anti-LGBTQ+ views. A report by Lambda Legal in 2019 suggests that around 36% of his appointees are anti-LGBTQ+. This is a disgusting figure for somebody in charge, by Trump appointing people with these beliefs, he condones them. Just like voting for Trump condones this discrimination. His views have influenced the protection for LGBTQ+ jobs, he has used considerable resources in order to block any sort of LGBTQ+ job protection laws. He implemented a rule that allowed homeless shelters to turn away transgender people. He is anti-LGBTQ+ and has frequently shown this time and time again, through his actions, that he does not stand with the LGBTQ+ community. His attempt to cut funding for colleges who block anti-LGBTQ+ groups, and his attempt to stop providing trans people health care are yet more examples on a very long list and that’s just to name a few. Once again, any one of these examples would stop any person with compassion for voting for somebody so outright vile.
Morality should be something that all of us prize with high regard, if you are able to sacrifice morality for the sake of avoiding the possibility of paying slightly more taxes, then you really need to take a long hard look at yourself. Politics isn’t the place to be selfish, it’s the place to vote as though you are a gay, black, Islamic, transgender woman, because if your country can’t treat the ‘minorities’ right, it sure as hell can’t treat you right.
So no, I won’t be friends with somebody who can ignore human rights by aligning themselves with the Tories or Donald Trump, and I don’t give a f*** what you think about that. You think I need to gain some ‘empathy’ towards Tories and Republicans? When did they ever show empathy to me and my LGBTQ+ friends, or BIPOC, or the disabled community? When did their campaigns ever preach any love and compassion? Don’t try to tell me that I lack compassion for not accepting your views. You’re right, I won’t accept you voting for racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, xenophobic, ableist, and Islamophobic ‘politics’, but compassion isn’t something I lack or any other ‘snowflake’ lacks for that matter, it’s for Tory and Trump sympathisers to learn. I will not empathise with anybody who voted for hatred, not ever. There is a difference between political thinking and human rights, if your political thinking denies human rights then no you do not deserve to be forgiven or sympathised with.
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