Preparing for the Apocalypse

There's a bad feeling in the air right now among leftists and progressives. Republicans are poised to win the midterm election despite maintaining their support for Donald Trump and all that implies. Politicians who openly deny the 2020 election and have implicitly taken the side of the mob who ransacked the Capitol will be gaining even more power and control over at least one house of Congress. 

This week, in the midst of this dread a Qanon type just tried to assassinate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Right wing billionaire Elon Musk has gotten monetary support from the Saudis to buy Twitter and make it private while letting the Nazis and white nationalists run riot. Just today I saw an explicitly Nazi account touting Joseph Goebbels' birthday. Donald Trump's ban will likely be lifted as well, the one tangible punishment he has faced for trying to overthrow democracy. The mainstream political media has reacted to this by maintaining their "both sides," horserace coverage. 

At times it feels like watching a slow-motion disaster. We can see the apocalypse coming, and feel helpless. 

Standing and watching by is not an option, it's time to prepare.The first order of business is to get out the vote on November 8, but that won't be enough. We need to be ready for what comes after. 

Republicans have made it clear that they wish, once again, to use the debt ceiling to hold the nation hostage so that they can get their extremely unpopular, radical agenda put into place. After all, there's only so much they can do with the courts that they have so deflty packed with ideologues. Gutting the social safety net will require direct action.

If we know this is coming, we have to pre-empt it. Congress could possibly do this by raising debt limits now, but we also have to organize. The spirit of protest, so active in the Trump years, needs to return. If they want to the government hostage, we need to have people in the streets. We need to be ready to take to the streets and make them think twice about this course of action. Maybe it won't work, but it's better than doing nothing. 

This week's political violence is a reminder that Biden's election win was only a temporary reprieve from the forces of fascism. Too many people thought that Trump losing was like killing the head vampire in a horror movie, unwilling to see how he is the product of the right-wing mob, not its creator. Because of this complacent attitude, we failed to strike hard against the mob after 1/6 and to make anyone who tried to deny the election into a pariah. 

We blew the chance to reaffirm democracy after January 6. As far as I can tell, we won't have many chances left. In my darker moments, I tend to think that we are already out of chances. However, that kind of doomerism leads to its own complacency, a complacency that is poisonous. Those of us who after four years of resistance (yes I said it, cooler than thou leftists) thought our work is done need to get their shoulders back on the wheel. Failure is not an option.