Charles Clymer 🏳️‍🌈認証済みアカウント

2/ The problem isn’t striking out. It’s tee-ball. If you want to hit the ball, you’ll hit the damn ball. Every time. The argument is easy.

3/ The problem is that there's no basis for reality. You hit the ball. It’s a good hit. A good argument. It goes deep into the outfield.

4/ The crowd sees you’ve hit the ball. Your team sees you’ve hit the ball. The umpires see you’ve hit the ball. Clearly, it has been hit.

5/ But Trump supporters will stand there, staring at you while the ball runs past them. They will refuse to acknowledge the ball.

6/ You will score. Trump supporters will claim the ball was never hit. An argument over clear-cut reality will ensue.

7/ The umpires/refs—in this analogy, major media—will know the ball’s been hit but ask that you see it from Trump folks’ perspective.

8/ “Have you asked them why they feel this way?” the umpires (media) ask. You stare back incredulously, wondering if you’ve lost your mind.

9/ The umpires, who prize entertainment over ethics, are worried the league may lose revenue if the other team’s parents don’t show up.

10/ “Listen,” the umpires plead, “can’t you just let them win this one game? Be the bigger people. Don’t stoop to their level.”

11/ “But that’s not fair,” you say. “There are rules. If they can’t acknowledge reality, that’s on them. You should enforce this.”

12/ “I hear what you’re saying,” the umpires respond. “But in fact, we didn’t video the game, so we have no way of verifying any of this.”

13/ The captain of the other team is taking a shit in the middle of the field. You point this out to the umpires. They look.

14/ “Yes,” they say, “today is the day that kid became MVP.”

15/ You start to believe you’re crazy. Could they be right? Maybe you ARE being unreasonable. The gaslighting is palpable.

16/ And then, a friend of one of your teammates, who technically shouldn’t play for your team, but is allowed anyway, pipes up.

17/ “Your team is losing because you’re not listening to your opponents. Your team sucks. You should all retire.”

18/ The kid, who you’ve seen strike out twice today, demanded to play on your team but insists that he’s not a member of the team.

19/ He also insists he would have been an amazing captain of your team… even though he sucks at tee-ball and again: isn’t a member.

20/ Meanwhile, the captain of the other team is yelling incoherently at squirrels and demanding his teammates each take a turn praising him.

21/ This would be a cute analogy were it not for the fact that losing the game = terrible suffering, particularly for women, POC, + LGTBQ.