The Cost

Brett Kavanaugh is a piece of shit.

There, I said. I know that we are supposed to “use our words” or “take the high road” but I no longer can. I am completely and totally done with the fact that it is Sunday night and I sit here wondering whether or not our Democracy will be around by the end of the week.

If you are like me, you have found yourself, more times than one I am guessing, watching the news, mouths agape, mind in disbelief, and your heart heavy with grief and sadness. While these great travesties occur, I find myself wondering what is the cost? How many children must be locked in cages? How many women must come forward with accusations of sexual assault and rape? How many more people must accuse the President of harassment and assault? How many more anonymous op-eds and faulty promised must be made before we finally all see that the real cost, is that these great travesties themselves (too many to recall here) are what it really takes to take down imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

Over and over again I overhear the same question, both on the news and in my own individual activist circles, about our current state of affairs: “what else could he [President Trump] do to make it worse or for people to see how truly evil he is? The answer, sadly, is a lot. For a full recount of the things Trump has tried to do since taking office, see Amy Siskind’s The List: A Week-By-Week Reckoning of Trump’s First Year.

Taking down imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy is not easy. It is complicated. When you think you make progress, another avenue of horrors opens that you have to address before you can go back to the “big bad.” However, while we all can agree that Trump is awful (although people still support him), he is merely a symptom of the real disease that imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy has imparted on both the country, our society, our leaders, and worst of all, ourselves.

Every action we do must be an effort to destroy imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Every march we attend must discuss ways that we can mobilize to destroy imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Every tweet, Facebook post, and public gathering must discuss a way to destroy imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. People have grown weary of having me at parties because my normal talking points are:

1. Asking people if they’re registered to vote (and if not, why aren’t they)
2. Making sure people are discussing difficult issues with their friends and families that may or may not support Trump (even I oftentimes think about how I can reach out to my Trump-loving family members who attacked me online. For more on that, see my past posts).
3. Just how long do they think it will be until we are actually living in The Handmaid’s Tale universe?

So, today, I don’t have anything happy and cheery to talk to you all about. I don’t have any more energy to give outside of what I am doing each and every day to destroy imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

The only thing I have for you is this: if you don’t vote on November 6, 2018, you may not have a country anymore the next day.

What Trump and his cronies are doing is completely awful. Each passing day presents a new set of horrors and pain that we have to deal with. Why we are well aware that the Special Counsel is uncovering a lot of witches in what Trump and the GOP refer to as a “fake witch hunt,” unless we have a Congress and Senate that will hold him accountable, what good is unearthing facts about what really happened in 2016?

I believe in America. I just hope there is an America to believe in after all of this travesty is said and done.