#patches up and at em with the hillary clinton moment

[okartichoke]

(orange cat nick of @thepoggersdilemma ‘s orange cat nick fame >:3c) (i’m so sorry, i’m gonna tack on squirrel guy)

[batboyblog]

In the almost month since the election I’ve gone through so many emotions. I’ve felt hopelessly crushed, furious, overwhelmed, and just plain exhausted. I hate that this has happened, and that the orange shitstain is gonna put the most awful people in power. I’m not gonna lay down and die, but I’m just so tired of this. That man has slowly drained the hope out of this nation for the last ten years and I’m sick of it. I know this didn’t start with him, but he certainly emboldened blatant authoritarianism. I know every generation feels at some point the world is ending, but at this point it feels so difficult to try to have hope for the future. I believe we as a country can be better than this, but I’m not sure at the moment how we can get there.

I know the feeling, the tired part any ways.

in 2016 I was in the Hillary campaign and like we talked about HOW! bad Donald Trump could be, Hillary had a tweet "we can't trust a man who can be baited with a tweet with the nuclear codes" and for us inside the campaign we took all that very seriously for us it was not talk we meant it, we believed he was really dangerous, deeply corrupt possibly criminal already, and totally unqualified and unfit. And we said so, and no one took us seriously, I always remember a nice middle aged couple stopped at our office to get some signs they weren't from the state and were just passing through. But Democrats, supporters and I was trying to push them to maybe volunteer (as was my job) and I talked about how a Republican President (Ie Trump) could appoint up to 4 Supreme Court justices and they would surely do away with Roe V Wade. And They literally rolled their eyes at me and said "I know thats a good line but do you really believe that'd happen? they'd do away with Roe?" yes, yes we did.

So any ways I believed Trump 1.0 would be every bit as bad as it turned out to be, it was even on January 6th a little worse. So I went through the emotional roller coaster in 2016

2024 has been just sad, and tired.

But I do feel something growing in the guts of my soul, rage, pure burning rage. Someone once said that the thing that fuels every good activist is rage at the world for being imperfect. I don't know if thats right or true.

But it's whats getting me up in the morning, we offered hope, and kindness and a better world and they threw it back, well fuck 'em. This is my patch of dirt on god's good earth goddamn it and they can't fucking have it without a fight, I'm a miserable cockroach motherfucker, I will out fight them, out last them, and win and stand on the ashes of their fucking fascist dreams.

more to the point, I did feel like giving up, and saying "well they picked this, eyes wide open, now we all suffer, w/e" but I don't get to give up, Bill Clinton said "there are no permeant victories or defeats in politics" and he's right, this is the call and the cause, to struggle unendingly for the better world and if you're very lucky you live to see it turn a little and a new battle for the better of man kind than the one you spent your life on be engaged. For me personally, my nephew is trans, he's 17 looking at colleges, picking states that are safe for him. I don't have the power to protect him, I did EVERYthing in my power to stop this, because of him, and for him, I'll be out there again and again and again. I wish deals with the devil were real because I'd just go to hell so he could be safe and happy, but sadly only hard work and uncertain outcomes are real.

I have no easy answers, no clean hope of a better world or a better America about to be born from the bitter ashes of this election. Harvey Milk said "I know you cannot live on Hope alone, but without it life is not worth living" And the last 10 years, the forces of darkness have across all of society, wearing many different faces tried to take hope out of our souls, and its brought us here. My favorite speech is by Ann Richards and I quote the end a lot, but here I'll quote something she said way way back in 1988

This Republican Administration treats us as if we were pieces of a puzzle that can’t fit together. They've tried to put us into compartments and separate us from each other. Their political theory is “divide and conquer.” They’ve suggested time and time again that what is of interest to one group of Americans is not of interest to any one else. We’ve been isolated. We’ve been lumped into that sad phraseology called “special interests.” ------ No wonder we feel isolated and confused. We want answers and their answer is that "something is wrong with you."  Well nothing's wrong with you. Nothing’s wrong with you that you can’t fix in November! We've been told -- We've been told that the interests of the South and the Southwest are not the same interests as the North and the Northeast. They pit one group against the other. They've divided this country and in our isolation we think government isn’t gonna help us, and we're alone in our feelings. We feel forgotten. Well, the fact is that we are not an isolated piece of their puzzle. We are one nation. We are the United States of America.

in the 2020s we're doing it to ourselves but its helping the cynical just as much. Each of us trapped on our phones in our own personal self made hell, well not self made, there are algorithms feeling you stories designed to make you feel like shit, because when you feel like shit you stay on-line, and keep doom scrolling. We're divided and our culture, the way we speak to each other it only makes us more divided, we're rubbery and inauthentic.

So I guess, you want hope, get out there and find something you believe in and fight for it, there's a local candidate near you I'm sure you can believe in, a ballot measure, a local group, something, and break the isolation we have to talk again because if we don't, well its already eaten us alive and we're trying to get out of the whale.