Well honey, we are where we are
Sorry folks, this is a long one.
In many ways, it feels like the first few weeks after Trump was elected, full of recrimination and reflection and half baked ideas. In those first few days all of New York felt like a funeral. I felt lost, and uncertain and it took me a lot longer than I thought, looking back, to find my footing. Even today, I’m still not sure I’ve completely found it. But I do know things now that I didn’t then.
I know how agonizing it is to have voted in a Democratic trifecta and find ourselves with crumbs in the face of too many existential crises. I know what it’s like to call your Senators over and over again, to phone bank and demonstrate and march and protest and birdog and still find yourself two Senators short. I know that the answers feel obvious, that the villains feel ruthless and the heroes weak and no one will give you a sword. I know that poetry feels more comforting as a gift we give to ourselves, than as a stand in for legislation. I know how angry we are. I know how tired we are. I know how impossible it feels to keep fighting and voting and calling when it doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere. I know that right now it feels like everything just keeps getting worse. I know.
But I also know this. When we started with the 117th Congress we had a few Senators on the record ready to overturn the filibuster so we could pass much needed legislation, and many more who were against it or hiding behind Manchin and Sinema and refusing to commit. But we worked, and called, and demonstrated, and we got 48 Senators on the record, ready to overturn the filibuster and fight.
I know that Virginia had a Republican state legislature, until it didn’t. I know that New York was governed by a bunch of fake Democrats who caucused with Republicans until it wasn’t. I know that Republicans tried for ten years to undo the ACA and they never made it happen. George W. Bush backed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in 2004 and by 2015 gay marriage was legal. I know that since Roe v. Wade was overturned 1400 people have signed up to run for office with Run for Something.
“While progress does not move in a straight line, the polling is very clear. The Right-Wing has lost the battle on these cultural issues. The vast majority of Americans are becoming more progressive, more open-minded and more tolerant. These trends are even starker among young voters of both parties.” - Dan Pfeiffer, Message Box
I don’t want to paint too rosy of a picture. In many ways, I’m still possessed of all the same privileged cisgender middle class white woman naivete, but like I said, I’ve learned some things and I know that we do not live in the best of all possible worlds. Even if everything else were manageable, we’re dealing with a climate change crisis that, to understate it a little, puts us in a bit of a time crunch. But time is going to pass whether we’re fighting or not. In a few months, a few years, a few decades, what will we look back and wish we had been doing? We won’t have fixed everything by then either because there’s no such thing as fixing everything, no fucked/not fucked binary we can be on the right side of. But will we have regrets? Will we feel like we have done all we could?
“So if you’re furious or grieving, ask yourself: what am I willing to do to change it? What am I willing to do to protect the autonomy and safety of our generation, and the next, and the next? How do I push against the natural inertia to pull my own circle tight and protect them and them alone from the world outside? As AOC put it in her Instagram stories yesterday, “ultimately, we live in this world and in this time. We have no choice but to engage in it while we’re here. Even running away is a form of engagement. So will your engagement hurt or heal?” - Anne Helen Peterson, Culture Study
There is a version of this story where the Supreme Court continues its unchecked assault on our freedoms; where our bodies, our history, our faith, our democracy are not our own. Republicans want to control what we read, what we learn, and how we live and love each other. They want the only legitimate elections to be the ones that Republicans win. And there are those on the Supreme Court that want to let them. They are coming for birth control, they are already trying to destroy queerness. They are killing people of color. They will not stop on their own. We have to stop them.
And we can do it. We can save lives. We can build the power that we need to protect and uplift each other. It’s not just about voting or donating or marching. It’s about coming together deliberately and intentionally and showing up to do the work every day. It’s about committing to it for the long haul. And it’s about acknowledging that there are many pieces of the puzzle. You don’t have to do the whole thing by yourself, but you have a piece and you can put it where it goes.
“[Congress] can impeach and remove justices. It can increase or decrease the size of the court itself (at its inception, the Supreme Court had only six members). It can strip the court of its jurisdiction over certain issues or it can weaken its power of judicial review by requiring a supermajority of justices to sign off on any decision that overturns a law. Congress can also rebuke the court with legislation that simply cancels the decision in question.
[...]
It will take time to build the kind of power and consensus needed to make significant changes to the court. But even the work of amassing that power and putting that consensus together can stand as a credible threat to a Supreme Court that has acted, under conservative control, as if it stands above the constitutional system, unaccountable to anyone other than itself.” - Jamelle Bouie, New York Times
We have the capacity. We can build that power. And we must.
Republicans have been working at this a long time. And Democrats have failed to stop them. There is so much to be angry about, so much to feel betrayed by. And so much to reconcile about our politics and ourselves. You don’t need my permission to be angry, and it isn’t mine to give. And in any case I’m too good at turning my anger inward, and much better at finding failure in myself than in others. But the other thing I learned from my own reckoning with the Trump years is that we will not be in this moment forever. And the way out of this moment is to build, to act, to speak, to find hope in each other.
“Look, we know that talking about voting doesn’t feel like enough right now because, well, we’ve been voting and that got us here. But this work doesn’t start or end in Congress. For example, at the state level, in places like Colorado, Democrats won power and delivered in protecting abortion. The conservative movement has been fighting for this outcome for decades, gaining power in local and state offices and reshaping the judiciary with ideological activist judges. We have a lot of work to do to fight back, but the good news is that this kind of community-based, year-round organizing and power building has been growing, and we’re prepared to invest in the future. This isn’t about Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer, but about the movement that we need to build for abortion rights, democracy, and so much more.” - Vote Save America
This isn’t about politicians. This is about us, and the movement we build.
After Trump was elected, I committed to fighting back, even if I didn’t know exactly what that looked like at that moment. I tried a lot of stuff, and made many mistakes along the way. This substack is my third attempt at finding a writing practice. I was awkwardly the only person to show up at meetings for groups that were falling apart before I found my Indivisible group. I’ve been an awkward phone banker, an awkward canvasser. I’ve fought way too many people on Twitter. I’ve said the wrong thing, I’ve defended people who don’t deserve it. I’ve failed many, many times. But today I feel so much more empowered than I did when Trump was first elected. And I never would have gotten here if I hadn’t started trying and failing to figure it out.
The important thing I’ve learned: I cannot fix it by myself. But I cannot live with myself if I do not try.
I never want to leave you without options or resources, so I’ve linked to some stuff below. But more than anything I hope that whatever your next step is, you feel empowered to act, to share that with your friends and family, to bring people into your work, to find solace and joy in building something together.
Resources:
Mutual Aid Hub - find a mutual aid network near you.
How to Show Up for Abortion Access - this document has ways to talk about it on social, links to places to donate and other ways to show up. There is an infrastructure already in place for this, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel
Vote Save America Fuck Bans Action Plan - good donation links and hub to find volunteer opportunities
How to Save Democracy: 2022 Midterms Edition - a pretty extensive google doc guide to volunteering in this election cycle, if I do say so myself.
Call Congress - in this google doc I walk you through how to call your Representative and Senators. Start laying the groundwork for court expansion, and keep the filibuster in the front of their mind while we build power in other ways.