Please Stop Crying, Love: Notes on solidarity, the 2024 election, and finding a way forward
To My Dearest Friends and Comrades,
I began writing this letter well before the results of the election were called, to save myself some time and get ahead of the hullabaloo that was the inevitable the post-election panic some of us further on the left felt was around the corner. It was long, and sprawling, and had a strong tinge of bitterness throughout. The contents of that letter were more of a post-mortem breakdown of the election, the awful strategy of the Harris Campaign, the inevitable failures Democratic Party. But I’ve deleted all of that. The fact of the matter is the 4 or 5 of you (& that feels generous for my sake) that may read this are not Democratic operatives, campaign managers, political strategists, or pundits- & so recapping all the ways I feel the Democratic Party lost this election (versus how the Republicans won it), feels useless if I’m being honest with myself. We didn’t tell them how to run their campaign, and they didn’t ask.
Instead I write this letter to you to share some of my thoughts on what we can learn from this, and how we can move forward, together. I know a lot of the talking heads and media icons have been playing the blame game (it’s ‘Latino men’, black men, 3rd party voters, suburban women, etc.) and it’s easy to fixate on that, rather than answer the real question I think a lot of us are asking which is — what does this mean? For what it’s worth, which I acknowledge may not be much, I’ve been stewing on that a lot and would like to offer up some of my thoughts on the matter in case they are of any use to you for the road ahead.
Donald Trump is Who We Are, Not Who We Have To Be
It is easy for us to act as though Donald Trump is the problem. We sometimes talk about him with this mythos, like he is the genesis of the far-right, misogyny, racism, and cruelty in American culture and systems. We act as if it is like the worst among us only exist and operate when he is in power. But that isn’t true, and we all know that. Any person belonging to a marginalized group knows the rhetoric, policies, and hurt still happen no matter who is in office.
It’s tempting to look at the results of the election and chalk it up to the U.S. being full of racist or sexist bigots, incels, and karens. But that isn’t exactly true, nor what I mean when I say Donald Trump is who we are. Donald Trump is a mirror of our culture and history. He was bred by American Culture and belief. He represents not just the worst among us, but what we’ve been as a nation, and who we are right now.
If this election showed us anything, it showed us our own hypocrisy — the dichotomy between what we say we aspire to be, and what we really are; between what we present, and the harsh reality of our systems and compromises. I acknowledge of course it is jarring when the sense of decorum we so crave and were accustomed to is all but abandoned in public. I think a lot of folks miss the days where they didn’t have to be confronted with our history and reality - with the ways in which folks suffer here and abroad at the hands of our government. But that doesn’t mean the harm wasn’t happening, right?
Towards the tail-end of the election, as panic swelled due to early polling regarding Muslim voters in swing states, the Democrats began to roll out the big guns to “win” those voters back. Obama said this at a rally:
Folks at the rally hall cheered this snippy, logical zinger aimed at appealing to Muslim-Americans’ “better senses”. The message: Donald Trump doesn’t represent what America feels about Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East; the Democrats do. However, famously, Barack Obama’s treatment of life in the Middle East was not so empathetic, with him carrying out a prolific drone strike campaign that killed scores of civilians without so much as notifying Congress:
And it extends beyond Barack Obama. Looking at Afghanistan alone over the last 20 years:
All this is to say to criticize the rhetoric of Donald Trump and the right on Muslims, but not our actual actions towards that same group of people, does not get rid of the very real existence of xenophobic war policies baked into our policies and culture. We murder innocent brown people all the time, no matter the administration, and seemingly do not care. It is a policy issue.
We’ve spent the last year letting Matt Miller and a host of Democratic White House officials — including Kamala Harris and Joe Biden — gaslight us on what fascism, genocide, and war crimes are and are not, in the name of protecting Israel (and that sweet, sweet AIPAC money, baby). Can we act so surprised when the American public gets a little confused on what fascism looks like?
This approach — this dissonance between what we think separates us from Trumpism and what our actions say about us — extends past the Party and those in power. It manifests in our day-to-day life.
Every time we step over a passed out, unhoused person on the street,
Every time we refuse to learn about the world around us in the name of “self-care”,
Every time we make excuses for universities sending SWAT to manhandle unarmed protestors,
When we talk about women’s rights but ignore the women suffering in Sudan, in the Congo, in the Middle East, in Shein and Temu sweatshops,
Every time we make excuses for our partner/father/husband/uncle’s racist, sexist, or toxic statements and behaviors,
Every time we stay silent on the state executing an innocent prisoner, or shooting an unarmed woman in cold-blood in her house,
Every time we allow, ignore, or justify the cruelty of our systems we also widen the path for people like Donald Trump and the right to be successful. We normalize using the suffering of others as gambling chips, and open the door for that game to be played on all sides.
Despite popular belief, the hallmark of Trump supporters isn’t voting for a candidate because of his bigotry— it’s voting for a candidate despite it. Is that so different than those that made the tough-choice to vote for the Democrats despite their concessions on fracking, policing, the border, and genocide? How? Can we really be so mad that so many on the right were willing to put women and immigrants on the chopping block for the promise of economic security, when democratic voters were willing to put Palestinians and *checks notes* immigrants on the chopping block for our own perceived freedoms?
American culture is the habit of fiercely rationalizing cruel systems and making concessions at the expense of solidarity, all for sake of self-preservation. Not because we’re naturally bad people, but because we don’t feel like we have any other options. Capitalism manufactures a desperation and fear that leads us to doing the math on who it is okay to let fall by the wayside. A lack of historical context, education, and global perspective hides the alternatives from us.
This election is the result of the individualism hammered into us in our culture, and amplified by the purposefully manufactured desperation that capitalism uses to step on our throats. It was a willingness to ignore and look past the struggle and harm of “out-groups” and “others” for the safety and preservation of our own. The only difference is who we’re willing to lay on the chopping block. That’s where elections are won — by which “out-group” is most disposable.
It just feels worse when you and the people you love belong to one of those out groups.
Nothing New Until We Make It New
At a wider lens, this is nothing new. Is it really so new to have a racist U.S. President? Or one that is a sexual predator (wasn’t Bill Clinton out there on the campaign trail)? One that is a war criminal? One that doesn’t care about the working class? Or directs angst and vitriol towards immigrants? Is this not the history of the U.S.?
The gallery of U.S. leadership and policy is a myriad of tyrannical monsters, slave owners, racists, misogynists, segregationists and the like. Shit, if U.S. history shows us anything, they typically had a lot of support from the American populace as they wreaked havoc on the most vulnerable among us. This is not new, and you are not powerless in it. It’s time to pivot. It’s time for change. But where do we start? I think we can look to Malcolm X for some wisdom:
On January 24, 1965, Malcolm X gave the speech on Afro-American history …Four weeks later he was assassinated in New York City.
Around the time Malcolm gave this talk, he was interviewed by a reporter for the Village Voice, a New York weekly. “The greatest mistake of the movement,” he said, “has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you’ll get action.”
“Wake them up to their exploitation?” the reporter asked.
“No, to their humanity, to their own worth, and to their heritage,” he responded. For Malcolm, an understanding of the historical achievements of Black people, as well as the origins and evolution of their oppression in recent centuries, was an essential weapon in the hands of those struggling for their liberation.
What we first need is a cultural revolution — to rid ourselves of the sickness that is western individualism and a limited, national perspective. We must commit to the agreement that we are only as fed as the hungriest among us, only as safe as the most vulnerable within our sphere of power and influence, and only as smart as our least educated. Until then we will be doomed to repeat these errors, and give way to more fascism for the promise of security. The more we normalize concessions on morality at the expense of someone, anyone, even those that aren’t American, the more other folks will do it too and inevitably people you care about will end up on that list.
We must acknowledge how all of these systems of oppression are interconnected not just on a national level, but on a global one, and act accordingly. We must fully commit ourselves to solidarity, and draw a line in the sand:
NO MORE CONCESSIONS ON OUR HUMANITY.
Now, our political systems cannot provide this to us. A lack of fear and an unwillingness to contract out your self-determination and wellbeing to someone in power, does not serve the interests of a representative political system. And that is okay. Now is the time for us to take the matter of protecting one another, caring for one another, and ensuring the safety and security of our communities into our own hands. It is time to build an infrastructure out of love and dedication. One of mutual aid, collectivism, and community. We have to do the work that is creating a system that isn’t at the mercy of those in power.
If the rights and actualization of the Trans community, of women, or people of color, of our kids, lies in the hands of a couple hundred folks in Washington D.C. that we will never meet, something is wrong. If whether we get to eat or have a roof over our heads is up to businessmen, tech giants, and a handful of politicians that rarely spend any time in our communities, something is wrong. The more we bank on that system to deliver us, the more we will be played for fools, and find ourselves abandoning each other to make it work — to fight our way onto a lifeboat.
We are too vulnerable to the whims of these out-of-touch bourgeoise elite.
The only difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans want to maximize profit as quickly as possible, and Democrats want to do it in a way that keeps you from noticing for as long as possible. That’s it. So they’ll engage in culture wars, or rhetoric to ramp folks up, but ultimately, they are here to serve our economic systems, and that system sees you as an asset and product — not as a person it is responsible for caring for.
There is much, much work to be done, and it starts internally. It starts with defining our values and non-negotiables. It starts with educating each other. With meeting up in person, and talking with one another. It starts with being honest with ourselves on where we aren’t living up to our values, where we’ve fallen short, and where we need help. The problem is much bigger than this election. The problem is in our systems and cultures. We have to be brave enough to imagine a world outside of this capitalist hellscape, and not ask or even demand it — but commit ourselves to building it, one paved or thrown brick at a time.
You Are Not Powerless In This
Which brings me to my last point - please stop fucking crying on the internet. Stop telling fascists, racists, bigots, and trolls how scared or bothered you are. Stop giving them your bandwidth and attention. If they relish in your subjugation, make them prove it. Make them show up and fight for it. We are not powerless to defend ourselves, or each other, and this is not the end. All hope is not lost.
Have some respect for yourself, learn about your ancestors and those that paved the way before you, and be brave. Stop catastrophizing — not because there is no reason to be concerned, or disappointed, or even scared, but because it is no excuse not to move forward; because your destiny is not sealed in stone and is not in the hands of these terrible men.
Stop reposting and broadcasting every terrible thing these punk ass fascists and internet trolls put on X and text behind anonymous phone lines. These people were here before Trump and will be here after. We know they suck, they always have, and always will, and we must create a world where there is not space for those flames to be stoked. Where the lack of oxygen drowns it out.
Stop with the Handmaid’s Tale memes — you are no handmaiden. You are Harriet. You are Rosa Luxemburg. You are Sojourner. You are Nat Turner. Chairman Hampton. You are Yuri Kochiyama. Nazis aren’t the only ones that can throw a punch, fire a gun, or make a mean cocktail. Fascists aren’t exempt from fear.
It’s like the poem goes:
Your ancestors did not survive
Everything that nearly ended them
for you to make someone else comfortable
This sacrifice is your war cry —
Be loud,
Be Everything
& Make Them Proud- Nikita Gill
I love you, and will always have your back, and I expect you to have mine, too. That is solidarity. I’m looking for some folks to build this community with — if you’re open to it, reach out. I’d love to see you at the table ❤
With love,
Jermaine