For almost twenty years now I have been noticing conservative men coming up with highly-detailed, extremely violent scenarios involving women and children. It is often about their families, but sometimes just hypothetical women.
The main ones that come to mind were Bill Napoli, a former South Dakota state senator speculating about when abortion might be allowable, and Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty, going off on I don't remember what.
It was off-putting, like "Why is this image coming to you so quickly? How much time are you spending on this?" However, I think I did learn to understand it more recently. That involved a "reporter" (I have to use the term loosely) who posted an excerpt from the novel he was working on.
Now, this time the brutalization was directed against the male protagonist, but what really made the difference in perception for me was that it was clear that this was the prelude to bloody, vicious revenge. Think Taken or John Wick.
Because those conservative types are generally religious and Christian and moral (I feel like there should be some more quote marks there), they know they should not be vengeful, violent people. However, given dominator culture and patriarchy and that will to exert your superiority, it is easy to feel drawn to those macho man fantasies. How can one reconcile those conflicting impulses?
Make the target of the violence so bad that they deserve it.
I acknowledge this is based on speculation on my part.
I am not sure that your target being an absolutely vile person would truly justify your own brutality. Like, you can fight to protect people, but maybe you should only be violent enough to end the threat; not enough to recreate a gory video game.
Also, it is because of my respect for the power of the mind and imagination and visualization that I suspect sending your thoughts in that direction wouldn't be healthy.
Those thoughts can be really important, but the real point of this post is that the idea of this virtuous, productive violence does not pan out.
This post is kind of inspired by "Try That In A Small Town", and I would argue that burning a flag or spitting on a cop should not be capital offenses. However, it is more inspired because I heard about the song not long after I heard about Michelle Tandler's desire to bring back lynching.
For my next admission, I had not heard of Michelle Tandler before. In trying to learn more about her, I can't really tell what she does. The funniest thing I have read regarded the results of a Twitter poll from April where the results were that she should get a job, but what she was going to do was start a podcast.
https://protos.com/david-sacks-backed-michelle-tandler-shutters-another-business/
I have to assume she comes from money.
Anyway, the article has the quote:
100 years ago in SF people were publicly hung for their crimes. Often by vigilante groups that wanted to send a message. The hangings worked. Crime would plummet after a few of them. Often for many months at a time.
https://twitter.com/michelletandler/status/1645067621191286784
There is more in the thread and she doubles down on her premise as people push back: vigilante justice would save lives and make her feel safer.
I think it is important to note that at that point in the long and repugnant thread, she is taking inspiration from the murder of Bob Lee, founder of Cash App. She was tweeting on April 9th, apparently assuming that Lee's murderer was a homeless drug dealer. Four days later, we learned that it was a tech consultant that Lee knew:
https://apnews.com/article/cash-app-bob-lee-founder-stabbed-13dab701a332328c531b3c6c444983fd
The threat is not usually the vulnerable person on the street. Sometimes, yes, but most of the time, it's someone you know.
Now, as someone whose businesses apparently fail a lot, Tandler could easily end up being a tech consultant; does she really want vigilantes hunting those down?
But of course the 100 years ago hangings that she was referring to was a rise in Klan-based violence in San Francisco. Now, the Klan generally does claim that they are all about protecting the virtue of white women, but they are really about upholding white supremacy, which tends to come with plenty of misogyny.
It doesn't make me feel safer.
As it is, the homeless population already is on the receiving end of more police violence than other residents of San Francisco; do they really need vigilantes too?
https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/24/san-francisco-police-use-of-force-homeless-people/
If you really want to protect your family, do laundry and wash hands:
https://twitter.com/designmom/status/1225052146963550209
I'm not the only person to notice the fantasies about families being raped. It's weird.
It is also a great time to re-examine wearing a mask.
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