I know so many people who are scared to death or freaking the fuck out about all of the ways that the administration of Donald Trump (aka "Elon's Meat Puppet") is fucking with their lives like a deranged child pulling the wings off moths. In just the last week:
- A dear friend with a trans teen is making plans to leave the country for at least the next four years. Gender-affirming care saved my friend's kid's life, and the fact that hospitals are pulling back on that care since Trump issued his savage, ignorant executive order has made them decide to get the fuck out of here. They're not the only family with a trans kid I know who are leaving. Of course they're leaving. That's what you do for your child. You make sure they aren't harmed. (And, yes, I recognize that there is a great deal of privilege in having the financial ability to leave.)
- Someone close to me helps run a food bank at an area church where many of the people who get meals and groceries are undocumented. The workers there are getting training for what to do if ICE shows up. They have cards they hand out to the people who come there that give them some direction if they are confronted by the federal government. Everyone there, from the minister on down, feels it's just a matter of time before it happens, and, yeah, it's scary.
- At my university, we've been given guidance, too, on how to handle any situations like that, with our administration reminding us that the university "requires a judicial warrant for any federal or local law enforcement official who comes to a campus seeking to make an arrest" and that an administrative warrant "is not a judicial warrant." We're still freaked out and not just about that.
(If I'm being vague here in identifying people, it's intentional because I don't trust these Trumpy motherfuckers in the least.)
- We're worried about the crackdown on what we teach, from our majors to our courses to the very content in the classroom. We're worried about getting doxed for expressing our disgust with the disgusting acts of this repulsive administration. We're worried about showing up on some fucknut's Twitter feed. I've had that happen to friends of mine, and the mongrels start chomping at the door pretty goddamn quickly. (And God fucking help you if you express an opinion on Palestine that isn't kissing Bibi's corrupt ass.)
And this is just about me and others living in our blue state safe space. I have friends in the MAGA States of America who are losing their fucking minds. They've had to deal with the barrage of hate and horror from their state governments and now it's all being compounded and double affirmed by the federal government. If you're already seeing abortion rights being tossed out, book bans, attacks on LGBTQ people, forced Bible shit, enforced patriotism, and more, at least there was a hope that Washington might mitigate some of the awfulness when Biden was in office. Now, it's like being held in a pit in a basement by the killer from Silence of the Lambs and when you fall asleep, Freddie Krueger shows up and you're not fucking safe anywhere.
So I say this with hope and with the knowledge that none of it will be easy and that Trump is completely insane and has stormtroopers ready to go apeshit on whomever he screeches about on Truth Toilet: Democrats, you need to fucking act. You need to do something that makes us see you as a genuine resistance. And by that, I don't mean just posting videos explaining tariffs. I don't mean tweeting or skeeting or threading about how the price of eggs hasn't come down or how Trump said he would solve the Ukraine war in 24 hours but hasn't done jackshit about it yet. Those are nice gestures, but that's all they are. They are icing on the resistance cake. Now bake the fucking cake.
Trump and his poisonous minions like to say that "the American people elected Donald Trump to do all the shit we're doing." Although, c'mon, not exactly this shit, like having Elon Musk take over large parts of the functioning of the government in a de facto coup. I don't remember any campaign speech with that in there. But you know what else we elected? Our fucking representatives and senators, and we expect them to follow through, too.
You have to show us action, even action that fails, so we know that you have our backs as we go through this shit. There's actually quite a bit that Democrats can do. If much of it is symbolic, well, symbolic acts inspire people. That's why they're done.
Have constituents in Republican states and districts flood their senators and representatives with calls and get them out to the townhall meetings. Make Republicans feel the heat of an angry electorate. File more lawsuits and make a big public deal about them and their purpose, and make sure you tie them to the Democratic Party, saying that you're trying to solve the problems the GOP is creating. Demand arrests of people who violate the law, like, you know, Elon Musk. Do something like going down to the Department of the Treasury and demanding to be allowed to have access to the same records that Musk is getting. Get arrested trying to do it, if you have to.
Most of all, stop making nice with the bastards. Sen. Amy Klobuchar recently said that Americans want Democrats and Republicans to "find common ground," which is patently absurd. Americans don't give a fuck about that or they wouldn't have voted for the candidate who explicitly said that Democrats can go fuck themselves. So fuck that. Grind the working of the government to a standstill with on unanimous consent, with bill readings, with whatever weird shit you can do in the Senate for some ancient reason. Do not support a single nominee. Make Republicans own it all.
And use their shit against them. Tariffs making prices go up? Propose a hike in the federal minimum wage, saying that it's unfair that working people have to pay for Trump's tariffs. Make that a big focus: Republicans are forcing you to spend more. Democrats want you to have more money. If conservatives try to say it'll hurt businesses, then ask them why CEOs are making billions of dollars while their employees are on SNAP benefits. Fuck it, go all in. Say you want to raise taxes on the super-wealthy to eliminate medical debt in this country. Have the fucking class war. Why not? What the fuck do you have to lose? Your donors? Your post-Congress jobs? Then fuck off.
Finally, don't abandon the people who need you. The only reason the GOP attack on trans people got any traction is because Democrats took the fucking bait instead of saying, "What fucking business is it of yours?" and moving on. The same goes for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Defending it is ridiculously easy (and Democrats have done a bad job explaining it). Instead, we get Democrats saying shit like "Maybe we need to just concentrate on bread-and-butter issues." That's tacitly admitting Republicans are right. Don't play on their fucking field. Bring the ball to your home stadium and make them come there. Minimum wage hike - that's bread and butter. You know what else would be bread and butter? A general strike.
It sucks. Everything suck right now. And every day is like lining up for the next forced face-fucking from these felonious freaks. It's gonna suck for a long time. So we need Democrats to get out there, in real life and not just online, and rally us. We need you to do that or a hell of a lot of us are going to be lost in our fear. Even if it all fails, at least it rallies us. Goddamn, we need it.
Oh, and, for the love the god, please stop putting Chuck Schumer out there. Just fucking stop.
