oh this ain't good (a historian's perspective from Southern California)

pretty much just me bitching about current events

NONPROFITS

Shit is getting bad here in the States, and fast for a lot of people. I live in Southern California, which is the de facto epicenter of ICE raids, a testing ground for enforcing Project 2025, and a vicious battleground in the culture/ideology war. As a historian, I am beyond worried, and I don’t want to feel helpless. So I set out to find an organization focused on fighting the rise of authoritarianism. I got through the first two websites and promptly started drinking again—just kidding! But it made me wanna.

The top 2 non-profits are geared towards lawyers and professional litigators. Ok. They have expensive looking websites: lots of clickable things, modern lingo, and fun floaty graphics. Uh, ok. I searched for concrete ways to get involved (writing, research, hitting the streets, whatever as long as it addressed the urgency of the present). This is what they suggested I do:

VOTE:

say what? at this rate, there is no guarantee midterm elections will be held next year.

HOST:

“dinners/coffee chats for democracy” with friends (ha! yeah, get all the ec-hoes together) to discuss ways of advancing democracy (“what ever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?”).

SURVEIL:

as a poll watcher—see “vote” above and yeah, we won’t be calling them watchers at that point.

SHOP:

or “wear your support” as they say by purchasing something at their online gift store.

and, as always, forever to infinity: DONATE DONATE DONATE DNOATE DDNTE

This is a perfect transition topic because who asks for money more than Congressional Dems? Knock it the fuck off already. Every single day, phone calls, texts, emails, from big name/low name/no name Democrats begging me for money that I don’t have, BUT I KNOW THEY DO. Whatever y’all are doing with it, it ain’t working.

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CONGRESS

First of all, fuck you Schumer. Resign already if you plan on staying this useless.

I am sick to death of ConGresSioNaL heaRInGs. Yeah, we know these people are unqualified, inept, corrupt, and uh, not very intelligent. Why do you keep trying to prove it? It’s not like they’re hiding much. And you waste precious time researching, preparing, investigating, questioning these bozos at length. Can’t you see the Cabinet’s been constructed this way for a reason?

It’s called engineered incompetence. Everyone appointed to an important position has essentially the same job: parrot party lines, keep media (and Congress, apparently) busy, take orders, and above all, stay loyal to leader. If his underlings actually knew what they were doing, well then all kinds of things could go wrong for him. Perhaps, being more aware of the damage they’re doing, someone sprouts a conscience and goes full turncoat with loads of sensitive information tucked away in their brains. Or, if charismatic enough, they could become a political force themselves with aspirations to ascend the authoritarian throne.

Congress is an impotent body due to a decade+ long stalemate between two political parties. The chief title of a congressional member is no longer lawmaker; they are all, on both sides, professional cockblockers. The immature strategies performed in often futile attempts to block aforementioned cocks personally make me wanna eat a bullet for breakfast. For example, using an insipid slogan like TACO to call Trump and Co. out on their lies, bad policies, and criminal acts is not that clever or cute—and now ain’t the fucking time! Because meanwhile, this administration is looking pretty hellbent on building enough tension for a proper Reichstag moment.

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PROTESTORS

A picture is worth a thousand words…no one ever said the words were truth. Optics are an incredibly important part of political conflict in a highly populated and media driven society (from props to propaganda). Currently, corporate media (doesn’t matter the lean, they all serve the almighty clickity click) and the administration control the lion’s share of public narrative.

That’s not to say people haven’t been trying. Millions across the nation are speaking up, contacting their representatives, posting online and protesting in public. There just isn’t a lot to show for it yet. And nothing like what we need has formed—a nationwide grassroots movement that engages and employs all sectors of society in an action-oriented, non-ideological, anti-authoritarian plan to stop the collapse of American democracy as we know it today..er, a while ago.

There are enough people against this madness, but clearly an insufficient amount of networking going on. What’s the root of the problem? Is capitalism’s golden ticket— individuation—the culprit? Is it because everyone has to have their own flavor of activism, their own pet issue to pay all their attention to? The opposition certainly expects us to keep dividing ourselves into these focused ideological groups with strict moral clauses that effectively keep the whole lot small and toothless. We are left with no unifying message—a fractured resistance.

Personally, I think leaders who are realists—not ideologues—are needed to defeat this administration, at least on a national level. Leaders who are willing to build bridges. Like with crucial labor unions and worker’s organizations in order to coordinate sequential strikes against critical infrastructure…What’s that? They said something homophobic on Twitter two years ago? I don’t care right now because it’s not relevant here—at the edge of the fucking abyss! Do they want to defeat authoritarianism? Yes? Well then, welcome to the movement. End of story. The stakes are too fucking high to give a shit about any other issue right now, we can tear each other apart again with renewed glee (and weightier motivations) after we survive this.

#MeToo fervor eventually became illogical, unrealistic, and unserious. Occupy Wall Street, with no clear message other than “this sucks”, started and ended that way. We need to take lessons from these, and more successful activist groups throughout history.

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MILITARY

Millions of Americans saw the pre-wompwomp-parade video of select active service members—in uniform, on national TV—booing elected American leaders. This partisan performance was orchestrated and designed to send the message that it’s Trump’s military, not ours. The same message was promoted in the parade—to honor him is to honor the military and vice versa. And here come our men and women in uniform to patrol citizens on public streets, at Trump’s express (and illegal) order.

The trap is set here: to turn citizens and service-members against each other. Again, it’s meant to divide us. The left has no emotional regulation and many are happy to “cancel” the Marines, who, more loyal to themselves than anything, won’t take the abuse gladly. Trump and Co. are hoping liberals will condemn the entire military as Nazis, pro-authoritarian puppets, a cohesive limb of MAGA. And many people eat it right up, yes sir, that’s easier on the old critical thinker anyway. But PLEASE do not write off the military—do not assume they are all loyal to Trump. Not all, nope (oooh, now I’m drifting into Caligula-Praetorian Guard-Claudius type fantasies, mmm). Look—if the real shit goes down, I’m more afraid of my neighbors. I mean, they have the same weapons and who knows what ideology. Foxholes vs. rabbit holes, eh?

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WRAP. IT. UP.

This Trump term was more aggressive from day one. The team behind the scenes had a plan, was prepared, and importantly, moved as quickly as possible to enact change by whatever means necessary. No waiting for the courts to decide if it was legal. The effect is blindsiding; resistors are left scrambling, always playing catch up while the enemy is already on to the next offense. And once the ball gets physically rolling, it goes downhill with terrifying speed. In a remarkably short amount of time we’ve seen military on the streets, far-right gangs and bounty hunters weaponized by ICE, citizens and legal visitors swept up in the raids, and the trafficking of immigrants to random countries made legal. Unfortunately, educating yourself and knowing your rights gets you a whole lot of nowhere when you’re being shoved in the back of a van because of your skin color or political affiliation.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court neutered the law of the land because the majority of their members serve something else; something they personally hold higher than their oath to the Constitution: a particular brand of WASP Christianity, big money, white nationalism, etc.

The similarities are growing by the day, but the most obvious difference between the Trump Administration and Nazi Germany remains that they don’t have anywhere near universal support of the public. In that regard, the climate is much closer to the American Civil War: two fundamentally oppositional ideologies exist, and they have reached a point in their simultaneous evolutions toward extremism where they can no longer co-exist.

Where are we, on what timeline? What do we do? Can history help us? Fuck if I know…I sure hope so.

The only advice I can give is check in, find out what’s happening, don’t tune out completely. They are counting on crisis fatigue to winnow the numbers willing to resist—and it’s a fantastic fucking strategy. I read

Letters from an American

by historian

Heather Cox Richardson

everyday so I always have at least an idea of what’s happening. I highly recommend it.

Thank you for being here.

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SHIT I DIDN’T EVEN TOUCH ON but wanted to

• effects of social media on political climate and resistance

• the Big Ugly Bill (adios democracy and public land)

• the increasingly fucked up nature of ICE raids in Southern California

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