Struggle.

Ah, well, we are truely in the shit now, aren't we?

The Trump victory came as a surprise to me, but not really as a shock. Something along these lines seemed likely to me, if not quite as overt a declaration or renunciation as a presidency, than at least a backlash and slide into increasingly formless chaos. Trump is very overt. That's the surprise. Trump's victory seems too obvious, too "shock-value," too much the result of clumsy writing - something along the line of having killer clowns spontaniously show up or having a major world leader being controlled by a mysterious charisma cult. Something impossible, ham-handed, and clumsy.

So, of course it happened.

Not "of course" as in that it was inevitable, but the "of course" of retrospect. It just so happened that the pieces fell into place now, rather than later, or by some cynical corporate committee design. The pieces - a sudden trend of overt rather than covert racism, xenophobia, homophobia, but also an exhaustion of they Dynasty lines that have made up American politics since the 90's. Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Obama (nice), Obama - and then, the stars told us, "Clinton, Clinton (or potentially, Bush, Bush)."

And, ah yes, didn't you want that, too? Or maybe you thought that Sanders would go the distance? Not on the DNC end - Clinton had amassed an entire career's worth of favors - and you rack up a lot of those during decades of extremely competant political work - and she cashed them in, but too overtly. We could all see, and she bet that it wouldn't cost her. It did - maybe not a lot, but a little - and voting is still the work of an aggregate populace. Technically, corporations and systems don't actually vote, and we are sticklers for technical rules issues this year. America is tired of both the neoliberal and the neoconservative, and they elected a second-rate reality television start and third-rate failed businessman we had to physically dig out of his 1980's media grave.

Are you tired? I am. I haven't been sleeping well, lately.

I find dramatic statements, post-election, to be gauche. The elevated speeches and promises of the victors bore me, and the rhetoric of the losers - of which I am one - is no less dull. Although there are almost certainly going to be fights - undoubtably and unfortunetly literal, in many cases - I don't necessarily wish to propose that we fight together.

"Fight" is entirely too dramatic. Borders on the romantic. What happens next is not a fight, but a struggle. We are already tired. There is nothing elevated about our cause, and there will be nothing elevated about our methods, our day to day, our fears and anxieties. Nothing elevated in suffering, neither pain, neither depression. Our enemies are our friends and family, they are our fellows, and in many cases as nasty and disgusting as we find their rhetoric and beliefs, their suffering is nevertheless real. The poor whites of this country are wrong, and we will struggle against them, and it will be awful. The wealthy whites that turned out for Trump - and they did - are organized, healthy, the few remaining well-off people in a nation that is slowly but surely catching fire - more like paper in the desert sun than a car ablaze, so far, but there is a temperature at which anything combusts.

So too a nation, yes? And we will see if it does soon enough.

And so, I say, "a struggle." But not alone. We will struggle together - and if all we have is each other, we will have to accept that. There has never been any sureness in this world, and a noble cause is estinguished as easily as a debased one, but it is, at least, held in common.

(no subject)

This is a dangerous time. Nothing I say invalidates that. Remember that cowards can also be dangerous.

But.

The fascist is, at their heart, always a coward. They wait for the blowhard, the strongman, and the demagogue to be strong for them. They lack the courage of their convictions, because resentment is not a conviction.

That they have only come out from under their rocks now, after they feel safe in their numbers, shows their real character. They want Trump to be strong for them, because they are weak.

I don't mean "Trump Voters," though I will side-eye them now as long as they live. I mean these people that spraypaint hateful slogans where no one can see, that post anonymously, that yell from cars, or travel in packs because they fear the ramifications of their actions.

The fascist is a coward. They are resentful and pathetic. They can only be allowed power, but never be powerful. The are, at their heart, ashamed of what they are; they can never be proud or at peace. They are bombastic only behind the voice and ideology of another.

The coward is dangerous, but he is not strong.