If you're a US citizen, go vote today.
Especially if you feel disempowered and helpless in the face of what has been happening to your country. There's power in numbers. Exercise your power.
Especially if you feel disempowered and helpless in the face of what has been happening to your country. There's power in numbers. Exercise your power.
I'd like to believe that racism doesn't win elections. That compassion and reason are stronger than hate, fear, and cruelty. That most people are capable of compassion. Even towards strangers. Even towards people who don't look like them.
I'd like to believe that there are still more people who care about our shared future than people who want to burn it all down to spite those they hate.
I'd like to believe that most people are capable of caring about abstract values such as "democracy", "justice", and "human rights", and can place these values before their own narrow self-interest (such as minimizing their next tax bill).
Please let me turn out to be right, this time
I'm fully aware it's all wishful thinking. Reality is disappointment after disappointment.
Racism, fear mongering, and lies are a great electoral strategy. Few people feel any compassion for those outside of their close social circle.
Most people would be happy to live under an auroritarian regime as long as 1) the persecution happened to other people, 2) they were economically comfortable. This is why pointing your finger at fascism is a pitifully ineffective electoral strategy -- no one cares.
The only way to convince most people of something is to make it about *them*: "you will pay more for health care, you will pay more taxes"... that gets attention. Saying "people you don't know will die from this" just doesn't move the needle.
