Thread by @magi_jay

I have seen people panic these past few weeks that I'd never thought I'd see panic. Same with despair. Then, when I saw someone panic or despair who I would never have expected panic or despair, I started to panic & despair. Then you would too. We fed off of each other.

Even those of us who could see the vicious cycle felt compelled to return again and again and again. Each one of us was affected by someone we know & respect showing panic & despair. I've never been in the middle of a psycho-social whirlwind like that one.

I have insomnia. Last night was particularly terrible. I lay awake for hours, thinking of our shared afflictions & how to possibly confront them. I wondered, as I often do, if I am projecting my own traumatized mind upon the world, or if I am, in fact, correct in seeing trauma all around me

I think we are suffering from what feels like a total lack of agency; our shared reality ever-more fragile. We can see the truth of what is coming so clearly, but the media seems increasingly hostile to reporting on it. So we lash out at what we feel we can control: each other.

Before I slept last night, I thought of the various people who have stood w/ Joe Biden these past few weeks & I arrived upon something: this psychosocial whirlwind almost has the character of long-term trauma survivors trying to teach newly traumatized people how to survive.

There's a reason the CBC has stood with Biden. There's a reason Democratic Black Twitter has stood with Biden. Maybe we should take our advice on how to fight from those who know how to fight.

I, myself, am a trauma survivor of gender-based violence. You do not survive trauma by giving into the chaos that lives between the spaces of your numbness & raging emotion. Rather, you build bonds w/ others & you reach shared truth through these bonds.

So much shared truth has been shredded these past years by Trump & the Republicans. I have no illusions about the GOP of the past, but these monsters politicized a virus; politicized spaces in American life--airports, doctors' offices--that had previously not been political.

Through all of this trauma, though, Dems ~largely~/~loosely~ had each others' backs. We still had our shared truths. Then I/P happened. We started tearing into each other. I begged people to be more tolerant of disagreement. To notice the exploitation of our divisions.

The past few weeks have, somehow, been even worse. Everyone gripped by fear in a world where agency seems a cruel myth. We already felt an increasing inability to influence others so we tried to influence each other &, when that failed, we despaired. Our shared truth gone.

This is how fascism wins. By conquering a weak, infighting, despairing opposition. Thru cyncism & doomerism. Thru the shattering of coalitions. It's time to reject this. It's time to be, as VP Harris has put it: Joyful Warriors. Time to listen to the people who know how to fight.

This morning, I watched Joe Biden & the people of Michigan & I felt strong again. Calm again. Then I saw this tweet & I didn't rage or despair. I just said the truth: the tweet is empirically stupid.

Every single American election in our modern era is winneable by EITHER the Republican or the Democratic party until the day we vote. We live in a hyperpolarized time. It's about turning out your own voters & persuading enough others to eke out one more % point than the other guy

If someone comes on this platform & says an American election is unwinnable by EITHER party 4 months out, they do not know what they are talking about. They're not worth our anger. They don't understand electoral numbers. They don't understand history. They understand nothing

How can you look at the margins of '00, '04, '12, '16, & '20 & declare a US election "unwinnable?" How can you look at partisan distribution & declare an American election "unwinnable?" How can you look at all the electoral data from post-Dobbs & say ANYTHING is unwinnable?

People who say this kind of thing do not understand American elections. So let's stop engaging w/ them. Let's find our shared truth & our strength in each other. Block the doomers. Block the cynics. Block the knowier-more-than-thous.

Stop spreading panic & despair. Start spreading strength. That's how you win American elections in a hyperpolarized time. With your vibes. With your confidence. With your strength & your clarity. Be that crown in MI. "Do not quit."

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1811903866864279919