The American Nightmare Is A Rerun
Kelsey McKinney, writing at Defector, provides an insightful breakdown of our current political landscape.
The second Trump Administration will surely be just as annoying and slapdash and dangerous as the first, and I cannot sit here with my LED light mask on and make fun of cabinet appointments again. I cannot watch 18 effectively identical ghouls shuffle through the press secretary job again. I cannot read the same articles about Ivanka’s involvement, and who is attending the White House Correspondents Dinner, and critique bad newspaper headlines. I cannot do this shit the same way again. And I will not do it while the same Democrats hold the same positions of power they did the last time this happened and refuse to do anything different.
I am tired of hearing that the other side is worse. They are; I already know this; that is not enough. I am tired of watching the people who are supposed to represent us roll over in front of Republicans every time they have the majority and then hesitate or capitulate when the Republicans refuse to do the same. I want the fucking moon to fall. I want something to change. I want the future to be different than the past, and I want that to start now.
Instead of licking our wounds, I want an outcry. I want us to believe not only that a better future exists, but that we deserve it and should fight for it, and then I want to do that. I want us to take this massive heaping misery of a country and transform it into something better for everyone.
It is important to remember that the Republicans in power do not hate the Democrats in power. They hate us—the electorate, the people. The policies they are passing are made to hurt us. And if the Democrats we have elected to fight on our behalf won’t do it, they should be relentlessly reminded of what it means to be an elected official, of who exactly they work for and what their job is. And if that means that their positions of power are less enjoyable and more difficult to do, good. They failed to win what they billed as the election that would determine democracy’s fate; they failed, very obviously, to take it nearly as seriously as they encouraged us to do. Every day that they continue to do that, they continue to fail us. It is our job to remind them of that.