Since the election, I’ve been hearing from various sources—opinion pieces and social media, mostly—that our country needs to pull together and work with what we have. Obviously not everyone feels that way, including me (#notmypresident), and there have been many protests, but I’m afraid that conciliation will win out. That we’ll be told “It’s time to move on, to heal.”

I’m all for healing and compassion for all, even those whose views I find abhorrent. But by compassion, I mean acknowledging that even bigots have feelings, may have families who love them, etc., and that I will not knowingly cause these people harm. It does not mean that I meet them halfway, that “there are two sides to every story.” There are probably zillions of sides to a story if you use your imagination, but it doesn’t mean every side should be given equal weight. Doing so, in the case of racist, sexist, homophobic narratives, normalizes hatred and emboldens those who already hate. This, of course, has been an ongoing problem that is only accelerating. Since November 9, the Southern Poverty Law Center has received 437 reports of harassment.

Noah Fischer @ Hyperallergic expresses far more eloquently what I’m trying to say.

It is not the duty of private citizens (or anyone, actually) to automatically line up behind someone who has scapegoated the most vulnerable people in the country and threatened peaceful protesters and his political opponent with violence in order to win — exhibiting the unmistakable qualities of fascism.

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This turn away from business as usual and toward collective resistance looms in a very real sense as the only hope for progressive values concerning gender, race, the protection of the environment, and also economic equity.