It is going to get worse, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept the full worst-case scenario.
Right now, a lot of people are hurt and scared, and the fascists know that. That is why they are making big waves right now, to try to capitalize on that feeling of dread and despair.
But they had to put in a LOT of work to suppress the will of the people. This is not the result of a single election season, this is the result of a coordinated effort spanning decades. The actions they are taking now are designed to make you think that it is hopeless, that nobody cares, and that the battle is lost.
In reality, the battle is never over. This is the moment that needs to push us to actually working together against them, instead of talking about what the right thing to do is. Talk won’t help, but local action will.
Join a mutual aid group and help safeguard your friends and neighbors from the economic hardship they are promising. Start talking your friends and family into attending boycotts, marches, and, above all, your local government and board meetings. Connect to the people around you, put up flyers, coordinate phone campaigns, and get people into these meetings to demand protections and change at the local level where it is most important.
Resistance doesn’t come from nowhere. It has to be grown, it has to be planted as a small seed and then watered and weeded and trellised and brought inside from the cold. You may even have to watch it die and then pick yourself up and start from a seed again.
But if we each dedicate ourselves, full time, to a single plant, then we will do far more good than running around frantically worrying about the forest dying. Because yes, the forest is dying, and it is up to us to determine what grows in its place.
We may not be able to save what we have now. But only we can set the stage, as best we can, for those who will come after us. And the more work we do now, the better they will be able to build off of that work, and the better things will be.
Even if that is true, why take out your frustration like this, by raging against those of us who are willing to do all the good we can?
I am not promising that we will be able to fix everything. Heck, I don’t even know if we can fully fix anything. But until every last living being is dead, there is something here that deserves every chance we can give or get.
You don’t have to participate, but to argue against this kind of work is like denying pain medication to someone who is dying and justifying it by saying ‘meds will not save you’. If we can’t save the life, we can at least save them from as much suffering as we can manage.