Thread by @JuliusGoat

He lost.

armoxon.com/2020/11/street…

That is very very very good. I am beyond relieved. Hundreds of thousands of people will likely now live who would have died. We will have basic competence and a certain minimum level of human decency and minimum level respect for human life in the executive branch again.

For the next four years at least, we won't be held hostage to the whims of a corrupt and ignorant white supremacist fascist.

I'm very glad.

The person who beat him was a man named Joe.

Joe seems like a nice enough fella. He loves his family. He loves his dog. He has decades of relevant experience. He speaks in complete sentences, what he says mostly aligns with observable reality, and centers on matters of consequence rather than the demands of his own ego.

He doesn't intend to simply abandon the country to the ravages of a pandemic.

He won't encourage mobs of armed neo-Nazis.

These are novelties these days.

His VP is the first woman, and the first woman of color, to hold that office. That's hugely significant, particularly I'd guess for the black women who formed the unbroken spine of his victory, made artificially narrow by legal structures designed to disenfranchise them.

Joe will be a far better president than his predecessor, in the same way that a casserole will make a better meal than a festering mountain of turkey shit.

The point being: I don't even have to tell you what kind of casserole.

During the campaign, Joe faced a blistering range of attacks from his opponents, all of which amounted to "If this man gets into office he'll enact changes to the way things are, all of which are extremely obvious and needed solutions to problems that threaten all of our lives."

And Joe won by promising repeatedly that he wouldn't do any of those absolutely necessary things, or at least he won *while* promising not to do them.

And his opponents are still terrified, convinced that he will do all these awesome necessary things he's promised not to do.

There's a lot of talk now about healing, which seems to be centered on healing the people who aren't wounded—the ones who did the harming. The ones who would like to do a lot more harming.

There's a lot of talk now about unifying, without much talk about what we would unify around, or what we would hope to accomplish once unified.

There's a lot of talk about compromise, without much discussion about what—or who, because it's always who—we would give up, or what we expect to gain, or what the other side has ever given up in compromise.

By the way, they haven't even conceded yet and don't seem likely to.

There's a lot of talk about how people who we know want to demolish our democracy and hurt millions and millions of us aren't our enemy—as if that's something you get to choose, about people who are actively and enthusiastically attacking you.

And all the people who cheered Trump, who refuse to believe any of this has actually happened and have already determined not to even recognize Joe's authority, are ready and eager to cheer for the next fascist and white supremacist, because that is what they very much want.

And a lot of people are already encouraging us to bring them back into the very fold they're actively trying to destroy—not because these people have become any safer, but because doing so would make things feel normal again, and comfortable.

You know, like it was before.

For a lot of people it truly feels as if this was basically just a parlor game, in which they didn't feel the stakes, for which this was mostly about how they personally felt about things.

They'd like to do the work of reconciliation on behalf of abusive people who are still eager to abuse.

They'd like to perform forgiveness upon abusive people on behalf of the abused.

They'd like to encourage the those still being threatened and harmed to perform forgiveness upon those who still unrepentantly seek to harm them.

They'd like to enable reconciliation w/o reparation.

They'd rather not know things already known.

I suspect this is because if you know something needs to be fixed, then you face a choice, which is whether or not to fix it.

They'd rather not fix things that need fixing.

I suspect this is because if you fix something that needs fixing, then you have to do the work of fixing it, and then you have to pay the price of the repair.

One of the things my family is doing during the pandemic is watching through streaming TV shows.

Perhaps you can relate.

We did Parks & Recreation, which was about many things—including how die-hard anti-government libertarians who don't believe in any interconnected natural human system at all are actually very nice and steadfast and true, at least to people they like.

We did 30 Rock, which was about many things—including how corporate conservative elitists are actually very nice to people they value, and it’s pretty nice to be one of those valuable people.

We did Brooklyn 99, which was about many things—including about how the New York police are fun and well-meaning but very open-minded and inclusive loveable goofballs.

I liked these shows a lot, I should say. They’re very funny, well-acted, and well written.

I’m just mentioning a few things I noticed that those shows were about, that I didn't really notice before.

We’re watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer now. It’s about many things, some of which I didn’t notice before—but I’m not here to talk about those things.

I said all that to mention a point in the denouement of an episode, which concludes with a pyrrhic victory for our heroes, in which they sing (it’s the musical episode) the following lines:

"The battle’s done, and we kinda won, so we sound our victory cheer / But where do we go from here?"

And that’s my question.

The first question was this: How did we get here?

Here’s the second question: What do we do now?

We have a lot of work yet to do.

armoxon.com/2020/10/street…