Tim Ryan–a mostly forgettable startled-looking white man candidate for the Democratic nomination for president–just debuted a new hashtag and some accompanying merch: #YouDontHaveToYell
This complaint is in reference to getting thoroughly owned by Bernie Sanders, in this exchange:
SANDERS: I get a little bit tired of Democrats afraid of big ideas. Republicans are not afraid of big ideas. They could give $1 trillion in tax breaks to billionaires and profitable corporations. They could bail out the crooks on Wall Street. So please don’t tell me that we cannot take on the fossil fuel industry. And nothing happens unless we do that.
(APPLAUSE)
Here is the bottom line. We’ve got to ask ourselves a simple question, “What do you do with an industry that knowingly, for billions of dollars in short-term profits, is destroying this planet?” I say that is criminal activity that cannot be allowed to continue.
BASH: Thank you, Senator Sanders.
(APPLAUSE)
Congressman, your response?
RYAN: Well, I would just say — I didn’t say we couldn’t get there until 2040, Bernie. You don’t have to yell. I mean, all I’m saying is…
(LAUGHTER)
The idea that Sander’s remarks on the spinelessness of the moderate candidates were not civil or productive merely because Bernie sounded a little bit like your uncle yelling at the television is ridiculous. Bernie is rightfully frustrated. So much of what we have to do to make this country a decent place to live has been a long time coming. Reparations to the descendants of slaves, a real plan to reduce our nightmarish economic inequality, a healthcare system focused on people rather than profits, holding fossil fuel companies accountable for the ravages of climate change—these are goals that hardworking activists have been fighting for for decades and beyond. It is truly a time to yell, to holler, to scream for justice and progress.
And I have to say that the July 30th debate actually made a bit of hope stir in my heart. Yes, the road to electing someone in a Sanders or Warren vein is long and fraught with obstacles. (And neither of them is a perfect candidate.) But just hearing the case for these policies made so clearly on the stage gave me hope that one day we will see something like them come to pass.
As many people who responded to Tim Ryan’s tweet pointed out, saying “you don’t have to yell” is classic “tone policing.” White men like Sanders don’t get “tone policed” as frequently as women, people of color, or especially women of color, who deal with it constantly. Tone policing means that instead of engaging with your arguments, your opponents claim you are being “angry” or “rude” or “shrill” or “crazy” some other descriptor that is usually code for “insufficiently deferential for my tastes.”
As should be self evident, tone policing is not a good argument. Beyond that, it can be an outright barrier to progress, as Martin Luther King Jr. remarked in a famous quote shared by @lilpettycrocker in response to Ryan.
At press time, Ryan’s tweet is getting mercilessly ratioed. His campaign may not survive. And that is good. Because whomever goes up against Trump needs to be able to yell. Between now and the election, everyone who is angry about the racism, the violence, the kids in cages, the lack of action on climate change, the unchecked inequality, the people reduced to begging for healthcare through GoFundMe, and all the other wrongs allowed to stand for far too long in this country will have to yell. Use you anger as fuel for the fight. Yell more than you did last time, and louder. #YouHaveToYell
YEAH, PEOPLE IN PAIN YELL!!!!!!