wtf...

I woke up this morning to one unread text from a friend. It was three letters: wtf. No capitalization to show emotion; they were just there as a sigh almost. I didn't have to open my phone to know: Trump won and the world may not be the same.?

What the fuck, I said to myself, also not as a question. I have spent the first two decades of my career fighting for change, organizing communities and fighting power structures set up to justify people being property. The idea that now we have to fight harder and maybe even go underground again is exhausting. And yet,? that’s exactly? what we have to do. The biggest lesson here is that, while a majority of white people are just fine with rolling back the clock, they should not be the center of our response. Those who are excluded by Trump’s policies must unite to figure out how to save ourselves.??

The victory of the far right shows that America has reset itself since the victories of the Civil Rights movement. The power structures were not changed enough, white people were not convinced enough to hold on to those victories–and so WE lost them.? I don't have energy for blame right now, and I don't know if it matters who put that last bit of straw onto the camel. What matters is that we have an appropriate response to the current situation.???

Where are we?? America spent 400+ years subjugating people by not letting them participate in society in various ways from living to voting. During those years there were movements like the Underground Railroad, Seneca Falls and the Suffragettes, and the Civil Rights movement.? These movements led to an expansion of rights for what people are allowed to do in a society.? Now, we are? at the end of this cycle of rights expansions and, instead, are seeing a retraction of rights gained, from a woman's right to choose to the right to protest one’s government.??

What might happen?? Who knows, but some foreshadowing from his campaign includes Project 2025, weakening if not an end to NATO and possible redrawing of European lines ( I can’t even think about what's going to happen in the Middle East), and jailing those who speak out against Trump and his government. Authoritarian governments rarely end well and losing the ability to protest is going to be bad…real bad.? Not being able to influence the government has compounding effects for the most vulnerable.??

What should we do?? First we must admit we are here. America in all her white christian nationalist glory is back with a vengeance. And to respond we must redevelop authentic relationships with those who believe in freedom, democracy and justice. We have to stop putting time into politics (or trying to reach out to those who hate us) and put time into building actual communities that understand our interconnectedness. We have to hold each other tight and work through the pain and bad blood we have between us and build a future that doesn't center politics or capitalism–but community.??

Timothy Snyder says “every election could be our last.”? That's how fragile this experiment called democracy is and ours has failed for now.? The dark days that will come will kill a lot of people, through deregulation, removing health care, and geopolitics. Even in the face of that dire outcome, we are down but not out. If enslaved people could organize a road to freedom, so can we.? But, as Harriet said, we first must admit we are slaves.??

I am scared. I do not believe we have the infrastructure to truly defend ourselves at this moment. But I also know we never have.? We've never had enough–enough money, enough people in power, enough time. And so we figure it out as we go because we have an abundance of love, empathy and dignity.???

Today, though, let’s rest, be honored that we lived through America's golden age of democracy, and fight like hell to save who we can.? May the gods have mercy on the children.???