Woke up in a cold terror last night again.
That smiling White House photo with Biden and Trump has done more to destroy my faith in democracy than almost anything else. I expected the Rs to fall in line; I did not expect the Dems and the media to normalize fascism. I know they’re doing it to preserve “faith” in voting, hoping they’ll get voted into power again, but they’ve done the opposite.
It’s like declaring COVID over (which the people demanded btw). The danger’s still there. People are still dying. But now the government won’t send you test kits or fund new vaccines, or if they do, they’ll do it quietly because we can’t have people thinking COVID is still here!
Meanwhile the deaths and the mass disabling continue on.
(I’m relentlessly the only person masked in public spaces, but that’s because everyone has adapted to just staying home or only dining outdoors or whatever their modifications have been to keep safe in a world that’s ignoring a disabling and still deadly virus. We exist but we’re small in numbers and often out of sight.)
CDC lowered the age to get the pneumonia vaccine—why? Because there’s a massive spike in pneumonia—why? We know why.
(One of my husband’s co-workers was out sick with pneumonia and came back into the office; hubby asked the man to work from home; he refused; hubby’s like fine I’ll work from home because I don’t want what you have; this co-worker is in their 20s; CDC lowering the age to 50 isn’t gonna do fuck all, but that’s where we are: performative action if any at all.)
Guess we’re just normalizing fascism now, just like we normalized COVID deaths and the mass disabling event.
My brain just stalls out, horrified by all this, waking me up at night in a cold terror.
But I think COVID actually holds a clue about how to deal with the “fascism is normal now” bullshit.
There are people like me who still mask, who still stay on top of the shots, who don’t fucking pretend COVID is over, who aren’t volunteering to be part of the mass disabling event.
People act like you’re crazy, but deep down, they know you’re not. That’s the thing about the “let’s pretend!” game — most people know it’s pretend, but they’re willing to go along with it, might even make elaborate justifications for why that’s “smart” or “reasonable” and will definitely shame you for “overreacting” but they still have that background static that knows it’s bullshit. Hubby said everyone in the office cringed whenever Pneumonia Guy coughed. THEY KNOW. The pretending only goes so far.
It will be the same with the fascists. Apparently, the elites want you to pretend that rounding up people and putting them in camps is completely normal. Can’t lose faith in democracy! Better to pretend the queers aren’t being persecuted and the immigrants aren’t being rounded up and the press isn’t knuckling under and carry on with our photo ops. THIS IS FINE.
But there will be tens of millions of people who refuse to play that fucking game. Who will do what they can to protect themselves and their family and their community. It will be harder, you will feel crazy for doing it, but you’ll keep the people you love safe, and that fucking matters.
The difference with ignoring fascism is that the virus won’t target you for fighting against it but the fascists will.
I’m not sure how that nets out for actions to take. I’m still sorting that out. But I’m not gonna pretend I’m waking up at night with a cold terror in my gut for no fucking reason. That way lies madness. And if there’s one advantage you can have in this upside down reality, it’s the ability to see the dangers clearly.
That’s all I’ve got this morning: a relentless determination to be Eyes Wide Open to reality, to take actions to keep myself, my family and friends, and my community safe, and to not be silent about this, not until I have to.
I’m heading out to get my pneumonia shot this morning. Because taking some kind of action every day is how we get through this with our sanity intact.
Peace,
Sue
Ugh, I relate to all of this so much… the dealing with people telling you you’re “overreacting” or “crazy” for refusing to succumb to the bullshit gaslighting screaming at all of us from all sides. Wincing from everyone with a big enough microphone whose income and cultural power depends on them at least pretending to believe that same firehose of lies. Someone I’ve known since h.s. stopped speaking to me because she knows I think she’s full of it when she rants about how “long covid is fake” and people just need to “stop letting themselves be victims” when they’re disabled by it. The funny thing is, I didn’t even say much to her about it (there’s a long history there, but suffice it to say, there would have been no point). But, like you point out, she KNOWS what she’s saying is nonsense, and she knows me well enough to know my silence is a refusal to validate her nonsense, and also a silent comment that I don’t think she’s worth arguing with (she’s right). Her entire “coping” method with Covid has been to pretend it’s not happening––this is someone who threw a giant party in Mexico with 100 of her closest friends at the height of the pandemic and then complained for weeks when some of those friends resented her for it or stopped speaking to her after they or their loved ones got sick. There are just so many people who can’t deal with real adversity or face up to the truth of real problems that require real solutions. Most of them in the USA are clinging to fascism rather than face the horrors their fascist “daddy-heroes” have already unleashed: pandemic, disability, climate change, horrific income inequality, and the resulting increasing cruelty to those they see as threatening their privilege or their money. I honestly think covid broke a lot of these people, possibly permanently. Sadly, their brokenness is what is now giving us fascism, at least in part. It makes me wonder if the “Spanish flu” isn’t what gave us the 1930s in large part (people screamed and protested masks then, too, and had ridiculous anti-masking protests). Some humans are just like stressed animals in crisis. They start to eat themselves and their own young. They run into the flames instead of away from them. They offer their throat to the predators for the predators to feast.
Yes, all of this. Thank you.
I feel your anger, frustration, and pain, Sue, and share it. Our boys just came home for an early Thanksgiving, which is wonderful, but my joy is cloaked in worry, dismay, and red hot rage towards those who brought this evil regime into our lives.
I am clueless as to how to safeguard our family and wake up at 3:00 every night worrying about how marginalized people will survive the hell that’s soon to come.