Thread by @AlexandraErin

The political purity trolley problem: you're in control of a vehicle on a rail that is, through decisions made both by yourself and previous operators, careening towards a crowd of people. (Thread... )

You can't stop the vehicle but you can slow it down enough for some of the people, but not all of the people, to get clear, and maybe some of those who get hit will survive, while still being harmed. This will not save everybody. (...)

The fact that you don't have the power to stop the machine from killing everybody is definitely a problem and the fact that you took control of it knowing what kind of a machine you were stepping into is also a problem. (...)

But with all of those caveats, it's STILL the right move to slow down the trolley and kill fewer people instead of keeping it going full speed ahead and kill all of them.

Unlike the traditional trolley problem, there is a clear right move: slow it down. (...)

Now, if you do slow it down and save some people, there will be people... some on the sidelines, some in the crowd that will be harmed, and some actually helping you operate the trolley who will say that because you didn't stop it, you did nothing. (...)

And that's... you do understand where those people are coming from. The whole setup is obscene. But some of the objectors will go further and say that because people still died, there's literally no difference between you and the person who got on this track and sped up.(...)

That's why it's the political purity trolley problem. "Perfect is the enemy of good" is not just airy words when we're talking about saving lives *right now*.

How many lives can we save right now? The answer matters, even when it's not "all of them". (...)

I wrote this thread not to admonish anyone who loathes the Biden administration for not going far enough to undo the harms of the Trump regime and the machine that is the US generally, because. I get it. I don't think I have ever felt more hopeless about politics than now. (...)

Not because things are *worse* now than ever. But watching the ways that the new administration has doubled down on, ignored, or strengthened so many of the very things we elected them to fix while enabling the GOP comeback in 22 and 24... I have felt despair. (...)

I have thought to myself multiple times this month alone, "I still believe it is of paramount importance that we vote as strong a blue wave into power at every level of US politics as possible, at every chance, but I don't know if I can bring myself to *say* 'vote blue'." (...)

"I don't know what to say to the people who think it doesn't make any difference, who think that Biden hasn't made a difference compared to Trump. I don't know how to tell the people who are being killed through violence or neglect that the change was worth it." (...)

And I still don't know that. And a little late night philosophical thought experiment with a metaphorical careening death machine hasn't changed those basic facts of my existence right now.

I do believe the 2020 election helped. I do believe that the world is better off. (...)

I don't know that the difference is enough, I definitely don't think that enough harm is being mitigated by enough, fast enough, in so many arenas.

But I do know that some harm mitigation is better than none. (...)

And I believe we have a better chance of actual progressive politics succeeding after Biden than they would after Trump 2.0, whether that's a literal second term for Donald Trump, or a different Trump, or a Trumpist proxy or successor or a more radical fascist springboarder.(...)

I end a lot of threads by noting that I don't have a solution for the problem I'm articulating and that I don't believe a magic silver bullet solution does exist, and this is one of them.

And I remind myself of what I've said before: hope is an action, more than a feeling.(...)

And despair, too, is an action. They're both also feelings you can have, but the action components are more important than the feeling components, because the feelings don't do anything for anybody.

So I will choose to hope.(...)

There's an aphorism I quote so often some people have mistaken it for mine: "Hope has two beautiful daughters, and their names are Anger and Courage." The man who said this, St. Augustus, died over a thousand years ago and affected world politics to this day for the worse. (...)

He did this by poisoning Christian theology with a lot of messed up ideas, re: misogyny and patriarchy and human sexuality, in ways that Christian imperial hegemony have entrenched within our society. Like I said, he affected modern politics. (...)

And before he became a bitter and brittle old man, he was a beautifully expressive and poetic writer who had some useful things to say. I think if people were debating the value of platforming him today I'd be shier about quoting him, but that trolley has left the station. (...)

Anyway. This is my late night rumination. I don't think I can take any kind of real credit for Trump's defeat and Biden's election. I've always been little more than a little buzzing gadfly on the fringes of politics. But I know that I pushed for this to happen. (...)

I know there are people who voted for him not so much because I endorsed him but because they wouldn't have gotten involved at all without my inspiration and example. I felt good about this when people told it to me. I don't know how I feel about it right now. (...)

But I do know the world will be better if the GOP is rebuked in 2022 and 2024, if the Trumps and Trumpists are locked out of our body politic as solidly and decisively as possible, and that means I need to get over whatever I'm feeling that isn't helpful to that end. (...)

So this is not likely to be the last late-night processing thread dump I make, and ideally it will be in the service of me making more useful threads at more useful hours.

Thank you for bearing with me as I get my head on straight.

(End.)

Oh, and I didn't close replies on this thread but I did immediately mute it. I don't need to debate anyone on this. I know the trolley operator isn't slowing it down as much as he could and I know "Well, the last guy would have sped up." is a hollow defense. It is what it is.