From TPM Reader GG …
My reaction to the election results is more straightforward than I expected: I’m not in the mood for national conversations for a while. Local, sure. Regional, definitely. But it feels like for a couple of decades now we’ve been trying a float-all-boats progressivism and it’s been responded to with spite, manipulation, deception and counterintuitivity by exactly the sort of people we’ve been fighting to help.
I HAVE good healthcare in my area – I wanted to prevent healthcare deserts for rural areas. I can likely get the reproductive healthcare I need if I need to – I wanted everyone to have that. I wanted young families to have childcare options so they can work and live, despite the fact that I can pay for it myself if I need it. I see Ukraine and think it’s the start of something much bigger and bloodier and costlier TO US if we don’t step up now. I was willing to pay higher taxes in my bracket to make those things happen.
And it feels like the vast majority of people I was trying to create space for said “no, fuck you, I’m not listening to facts and I want you to suffer”.
So… I’m not even angry. I’m exasperated. And maybe this comes across as some sort of elite noblesse oblige sort of nonsense, but I just thought it was empathy and trying to make a more equal union. But those people doing worse than I am say they don’t want the help I’m proposing, and in fact will actively vote for a rapist felon and crypto edgelord leading a fascist movement. So why would I keep making the same appeal.
Right now, in this moment, I’m very attuned with “ Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time and money and energy and thought trying to make things less hard for all Americans, but this is what they want.
So let them have it. At this point it kind of feels like a choice between a prolonged tussle where we fight back, get blamed for every damn thing, and do this all again every four years. I’d prefer to spend time and energy locally, making sure those in my immediate area get what helps them live fruitfully. The Middle has made their preference painfully clear and I don’t feel like apologizing for not doing ENOUGH to make their lives better when they either reject our policies or rebrand them as their own and then bash us with them.
I know that I will also be part of the “get it good and hard”, and that some people hear spooky echos of the “First They Came…” poem but DUDE. Over half the country apparently doesn’t WANT us to speak up for them. They WANT this to happen. So I’ll be actively staying local keeping my powder dry for the people who urgently need it, like the Trump voters who are about to be horribly surprised that he really meant all that deportation stuff.
Sometimes people need to actually get what they want before they realize what that means. And I think we’re there, and to a certain extent, progressives need to be more selective about where we step in for the next decade or so. I don’t enjoy saying any of this. But this is where Trump II has left me.
