Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
The very first weekend of Donald Trump's presidency he followed through on one of his most racist pledges - banning Muslims from entering the United States.
There was no plan and they knew it wouldn’t survive the courts. It wasn’t intended to. The goal here, orchestrated by convicted felon Steve Bannon, was to create chaos and instill fear.
Legal residents and travelers were held indefinitely in customs. The sweep, of course, also ended up affecting US citizens. Republicans were fine with that because the victims were Muslim.
International airports were flooded with protestors, myself included, followed by ad hoc groups of legal aid. Local lawyers put out a call for attorneys to come help. Several of my friends did.
These past 7 years, I keep coming back to this picture:
I don’t know his name. We didn’t speak other than my asking if I could take his picture. It broke my heart that not only was he dealing with a racist regime blocking his loved ones from entering the country, but that he felt obligated to explain that he too loved America.
I did speak to several family members that weekend. Several of the people Trump was blocking from entering the US had lived here for decades. None of them were dangerous. They were just the wrong religion.
And the Republicans were fine punishing them for that.
The protests and legal efforts worked, though it took days.
Trump has vowed to do it again. Believe him.
There will be years of analysis of what happened on Tuesday. People are already blaming X stance they disagreed with Biden or Harris on for the loss. They’re wrong. My own thoughts follow.
As much as we like to view American politics and economics as unique, that hasn't been the case for decades. Among industrialized nations holding elections this year, EVERY single incumbent party did poorly. The incumbent party with the smallest loss in support? Democrats in the United States. While there are numerous reasons for what happened, this was part of a global backlash against incumbents from constituencies upset about inflation (which was absolutely inevitable) in the years recovering from the pandemic.
The Democrats have a messaging problem. A big one. It has LONG been the case that individual perceptions of the economy are decoupled from the actual metrics. By every measure, the United States has handled the pandemic recovery FAR better than any other country. Inflation was curbed, unemployment is at record lows, real wages have begun to grow, and the Biden administration has invested in numerous programs to grow manufacturing growth and support unions. Biden was the first president in history to walk a picket line. This did not pierce the perception that things are terrible for the working class. In addition to the false branding that Republicans are better for the economy, nationwide people bought into the perception that things are terrible. This is a marketing, branding, and communications problem. I don't have solutions, but they must be developed.
The United States has a massive disinformation problem. The Internet has long been an incubator for conspiracy theories and false data. That's gone into hyperdrive the last decade. Social media, gaming culture, podcasts, etc... are absolutely permeated with right wing propaganda and lies. College students are showing up on campus unable to read a book because they never have before. The traditional media has been absolutely terrible in covering Trump. He is a convicted felon. He’s an adjudicated rapist. His charity was dissolved for fraud. His primary company convicted of fraud. His university shut down over fraud. He is the only president in US history to violently try to over turn an election. Yet media stories have not hammered this over and over. But traditional media is mattering less and less. The Democrats got their asses kicked on Youtube, podcasts, TikTok, etc... This has to change.
I do not do platitudes. Love doesn’t win. Hate often does. So let me say right now, this is going to be bad. It’s going to be worse than last time. People are going to die. Be prepared.
But like those airport protests in 2017, we are going to fight him. We are going to fight like hell. We will not always win. In some cases, that fight comes with risk. Do it anyways.
There is good news.
You don’t have to invent anything. And you aren’t doing this alone. There are groups who have already been putting in the groundwork for years if not decades on how to resist. Seek them out. Support them. Join them. I will be sharing them as needed.
Take care of yourself. Whatever you’re feeling right now is legitimate. I felt hopeless at first myself. Take the time time you need to work through your reactions. Then start to get ready to fight. I understand there are plenty of people who are trans/queer/undocumented who are risking a great deal by fighting publicly.
I am a cis, heterosexual, white man. I’ll fight for you if you can’t.
He and his sycophants are going to try and inflict pain and retribution on anyone they perceive to be others. There’s still good news here - Donald Trump and the people he surrounds himself with are wildly incompetent. Time after time in his first administration they failed at something simply because they did not understand how government works.
There are going to be fewer safeguards in his second administration, but that core incompetency is still there. They are going to fail at a great deal of what they attempt.
I will not tell you how to feel here, especially as I am not a member of any of the groups he’s going to target. But there are reasons to look to hope.
Spending eight years of my life obsessively covering his malfeasance and cruelty has definitely taken a personal toll. I’m so very tired of this. But I am pledging now, I will be doing this another four years. In fact, I am going to make an effort to expand the reach of this information, which right now is mostly confined to friends and family.
Don’t give up. Seek out the resources and communities you need to keep yourself sane and safe. He is going to die having never held a single person in his life love him or even care about him. You are not him. You are not alone in this.
Dylan Thomas wrote what, to me, are the most beautiful words ever penned to paper. It’s about rejecting the acceptance of death but I think it suits the purpose of resisting authoritarianism, of resisting hate. I don’t know what the future holds here. I know we don’t have to accept it or go willingly.
Rest, heal, love… And then there is work to be done.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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