Don't Feed the Fascists

A quick thing about the day of boycotting ahead: I’m participating, and if you feel at all moved, you should do so, too.

The idea is to abstain from shopping at big retail chains: Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, Amazon, etc. There’s no need to starve your local independent stores of business, but deliberately turning away from billionaire-led enterprises that are helping to support this kakistocracy we’re all being subjected to would be great.

A digital blackout also makes a lot of sense. Give yourself a break from social media, or any media that is allowing itself to be wrangled to legitimize or sane-wash this intense, awful political moment we’re in. Other creative answers could be to unsubscribe from email advertisements, or to leave things hanging in the carts of places you might normally shop that are your targets in this boycott.

One day makes an impact, and if you can do more, even better! In a world of increasing speed where we are inundated with advertisements and enticed into a lot of convenience spending, it’s easy to lose track of where we’re flinging our money and what it’s supporting. Even a day of boycotting can be an excellent reset as we think through how we want to participate in this capitalist mess we’re all stewing in. And, of course, if you keep it up, that sends an even bigger message.

Collectively, protests and boycotts can shift cultural tides. Already, boycotts have triggered shareholder conversations about how corporations have bent the knee to the orange oaf on their policies. Your wallet isn’t the only place to flex muscle right now, but it’s certainly worth doing to the best of your ability.

Don’t go hungry. Don’t miss out on medications you need or essential items. If you forget, just reset. Treat it like a meditation; if your attention drifts, just let yourself come back to the practice at hand. Focus your frustrations outward and back to action, rather than wasting energy on self-talk that demands perfection.

A friend of mine years ago said, while we were protesting against the impending invasion of Iraq, that she hoped that people acquired a taste for protest, that they learned to find that solidarity and strength in demanding better. Overwhelm is understandable, but all actions start small. Start where you are.  

Valentines in Unpresidented Times

This time last week, I was up late finishing up the handcrafted Valentines that my second-grader and I had dreamed up for his classmates. I had a bunch of little heart-shaped cards to cut out, and was looping craft felt together to weave little pockets to hold sweet wishes for twenty-some children. 

A noise my kiddo had made in the car on the drive home that day had reminded me of Hamilton, so I put that on for us to listen to. After his little hands tired in our festive factory that night, I sat up with my headphones on to carry on where we'd left off in both the project and the songs. 

As I was working, the muscle memory kicked in: I remember how to do this. I remember what I did before, when this orange monstrosity overtook our government before; I made things, I listened to music that compelled me to keep moving, and I let my mind wander to words I wanted to string together. I probably listened to Hamilton a thousand times in those years. 

When I was pregnant with my second, I was so worried about what would happen next, and wondered whether it was wise to throw the dice another time on the potential upheaval of a baby. Many people said to me that it would be different this time around, because I had already learned so much from doing it the first time. I certainly had my doubts. 

Really, that has turned out to be true. I've been here before. I remember. There's a deep muscle memory about that heave-ho of early parenting that makes the dance smoother, more familiar so quickly this time around. 

But, honestly, with my firstborn, it was never baby that made things hard. It was the insanity of the adult world, the intensity of doing the sacred work of raising a small human against the backdrop of daily cruelties with little help, pushing back the tide of history being made in the worst way to keep a peaceful place for my baby to thrive. 

So, having yet again indulged in one of the most profound acts of optimism humans can embark upon, I have been rewarded with another blissfully cheerful, easy baby, to be raised amid absolute stupidity from the generations that came before. It feels punishing, foolish to be having to fight these fights again. I am profoundly angry at those that were too foolish or lazy to prevent this awfulness from descending upon my babies’ childhoods again. I wish I could protect them from the perversity of all of this, and could give them back the bandwidth that is stolen from me in my hypervigilence.

And, yet, it is easier. I have done this before. I have collected my materials, put on musical motivation, and tried to find the words as I wrap my life and strength around my baby once more. It is tiring, but there's only one way through, and my version of it advances on many fronts. 

Now, of course, my previous baby is a big kid. He has so many questions. As we race along with lyrics that outline the creation of so much that's being shredded now, I develop new muscles and unlock unknown dexterity to supply explanations for history repeating and unprecedented times. I do this even while I struggle to make it make sense to myself. And it happens alongside the ordinary joys and pains of life that goes on even as this chaos rages. 

Around here, we are working to expand love, share sweetness, and also stand up for what's right.

A week ago, I pushed aside the horrors to engage my hands in the creation of some love and normality for the children around me. And I find that the contrast gives me fuel for the fight ahead.

Dancing and Scribbling, Silence and Sound

I'm just going to give myself a moment here to grieve some personal losses. These are far from the most important things happening, but I feel them nonetheless, and how they register in the moment is part and parcel of this project of chaos and disarray we're all being subjected to. 

Plus, I just spent some hard-earned therapy bucks talking about this a couple of hours ago, so it's top of mind. 

I had a really wonderful weekend. On Friday, I went to an awesome Weird Al burlesque show that was just so, so good. Took myself on a date, made some new friends, loved it. Saturday, I had the pleasure of joining friends at a birthday celebration, seeing Tim Curry in conversation with Peaches Christ at a tribute for the former, and attending the Edwardian Ball with my husband and some gorgeous friends. Sunday, I sat down for a talk with one of my favorite cousins, and then read a friend's satirical rendering of Oz as Dorothy in my first theatrical performance since, I dunno, maybe high school? 

And when I got home from the last gig, it wasn't too late, and I was looking forward to sharing the highlights on social media. Except, I didn't. Because, when I stepped out of IRL interactions and caught up with the news, the horror of this "flood the zone with shit" fascist government takeover had reached a fever pitch. Watergate, but throughout all of our federal operations, globally, and encompassing our most sensitive data, had gone down. So, I stayed up too late writing about that instead. 

I have two small humans to look after here. I'm more protective of my energy than I used to be. It is both a treat and a logistical feat to enjoy so much time out and about with friends old and new. It was invigorating to connect artistically with San Francisco so much! I needed that, and I wanted to share that. 

But I am also trying to avoid creating content for a billionaire collaborator helping to skew our information environment toward authoritarianism. For countless years, I've tried to report rape jokes, hate speech and harassment on Facebook, only to be told again and again that those don't violate community standards. Though having a drag name or breastfeeding a baby apparently do. 

I don't want my words fed into an AI training set (too late for that) nor do I want to abandon the years and years of building community that has happened here. It gives me the ick to be here, picturing Zuck trying to look cool for Trump, erasing transness and opening the floodgates for trolls to run the roost. 

When Twitter was going down in flames after Elon was forced to go through with purchasing it, I went back to save my data and say goodbye. I didn't expect it to hurt, but it did. I'd built connections there, and I had to leave them behind. A lot of people I valued talking to on that platform had left already. 

But this is about more than how gross tech billionaires are. It's also about the silencing and distraction from joy that all of this noxious shit brings. 

Right now, we are in the midst of intense pollution of our information ecosystem. NPR and NBC have been given notice to clear out the spaces they use to cover the Pentagon to make room for misinformation merchants such as Breitbart and OAN. Meta is getting rid of fact-checking in the US just as we are witnessing the ceaseless lying Trump is known for, instead emulating Musk in turning this duty over to... Whoever. Trolls, probably. 

And TikTok has driven creators trying to share information about sex education and reproductive rights in algospeak to evade murky community guidelines that seem suspiciously conservative, even while the platform praises Trump on its landing page in times of crisis. This is all to the side of the data scraping and profiling that's going on. 

Meanwhile, traditional media are settling case after meritless case in hopes of surviving Trump's bullying lawsuits and maintaining some sort of position to cover what's happening. (Of course, their sanewashing of GOP actions helped create an appearance of false equivalence between the parties, which helped get us where we are today.) 

So it doesn't feel good to be online, at least not in the places I'm used to. And it's gross to imagine, but for a few well-placed votes spread across key states, partly paid for by an insane tech titan, we could have missed that all of these CEOs were waiting in the wings to aid in authoritarian control of information, hiding the slimy impulses we see playing out now. Should I be grateful about this transparent cravenness?

In an alternate dimension, much like our own, we're watching corporations extolling the virtues of their diversity initiatives to curry favor with a black, female president. They end up building the pipelines of talent that are more representative of how our country actually looks, and reflective of the gains we've made in the last few decades in getting more people to the table, even if they are doing it to land federal contracts. President Harris is signing executive orders to usher in new generations of medical practitioners who use evidence-based medicine bolstered by healthcare research that includes sex and race into its purview, and tech companies are creating products that make that data more useful to the citizens that paid for the science behind it. 

And, in that alternate dimension, I still have misgivings about privacy and social media, but I at least feel alright about being there to promote my friends' events, and to talk about my own. Indeed, the followers I have are from a time when I mainly shared dance and art, though not without my own commentary about the world in which it is happening. 

Instead, I only feel right about using this platform to resist. I probably will share the joyful photos, because joy is so important now, too. But it is sullied in this place. I come here for my friends, but this joint is run by fascists, and I want to spend the precious time and attention I have wisely, and elsewhere. 

While this kakistocracy extends its claws like this into every corner, life goes on, in its fullness. The joy of a beautiful weekend runs alongside the fury at what is being stolen from us. The need to connect sits awkwardly alongside the discomfort at the channels available and the megalomaniacs with their hands on the switchboards.

Attached: Two Dancers by Salvador Dalí, pen and paper, 1949. Which somehow expresses how I felt this weekend, chaotically dancing and scribbling through the storm, or being the eye of it.

On Millions, and Billions, and Zeroes

Well, after the horrifically illegal weekend Elon had, all of this Silicon Valley capitulation makes sense. These super-rich assholes all talk to each other, and I have no doubt that Musk laid out his plans for his bought-and-paid-for presidency to each of them personally, as clearly as Project 2025 was written out for anyone who could be bothered with a cursory education on the stakes in this election. 

Faced with an invitation to oligarchy or the threat of being targeted for showing some backbone, they have opted to line their pockets further, standing aside or assisting as vulnerable groups are scapegoated and the mechanisms of our government are turned away from anything hopeful and toward vengeance and cruelty. They are wittering away about AI while propping up a man who promised to be a dictator. (Skynet seems closer than ever.) 

Having gutted FBI leadership, stolen tranches of our data, and grabbed the purse strings of our nation in the most flagrantly unconstitutional manner imaginable, it's clear that Musk and the orange oaf have paralyzed our federal operations in preparation for a coup, which is happening before our eyes. They did it to yank the chain and assert power over anyone who might resist, and didn't care that the ability to access food aid or medication would be disrupted for millions. 

Public health data that we paid for with our tax dollars is being erased. Women's health was immediately on the chopping block, along with any mention of transness or research that assumed that humans come in varieties beyond straight, white, and male. Already, doctors have lost resources that help them provide basic care to patients, and the CDC is being gutted as we stare down another potential pandemic. Some of us are not going to survive this. 

And, because both diplomacy and humanitarian efforts are beyond the perception of these kleptocratic weirdos, USAID has apparently been destroyed for refusing to let an unelected private citizen and his band of fascist toadies access sensitive security information. This will hurt globally, and offers a vacuum for adversarial states to enter where the US has abandoned its influence. 

As a reminder, it was not half of the country that voted for this: it was less than a quarter. No one voted for Elon. About as many people voted for Kamala Harris as did for the bloviating monstrosities before us. Trump's voters are a lost cause, and literally nothing he can do is bad enough to dissuade them--it's a cult. 

But an even bigger group than either of those could have voted, and simply did not. All of those folks held the door for the destruction and robbery happening now. They handed Trump the presidency and two compliant houses of Congress by simply not bothering to show up. The Undeclared, "Kamala is a cop," "I'm not excited about either candidate," "both sides" non-voters are just as complicit in this mess as Bezos, Zuck, and apartheid boy, though the former are certainly not going to enjoy power nor profits as a result of this collapse. 

The extremely rich do not care about livable wages, decent jobs, or the improvement of basic living conditions for people in this country, or anyone outside of their gated compounds. They do care about money and flattery, however, which are perhaps the most common currencies among billionaires. As a reminder, we all have more in common with a homeless person than a billionaire--you are never one paycheck away from that level of wealth, but the majority of people in this country live one layoff, one health scare, one natural disaster away from penury. 

Perhaps one of the greatest swindles Donald Trump has managed to pull, as a poor person's idea of a rich person, is the MAGA mindset that his followers are no longer temporarily embarrassed millionaires, but billionaires in the making. They stand slavering away as his tax cuts and executive orders, which will never benefit them, offer welfare to the the super wealthy, hollowing out our common funds for infrastructure and basic needs, and giving the choicest bits of our nation's assets to cronies that flatter him. That is the point of this chaos. 

We still collectively have the power to do something about this. The people who don't want this still outnumber those that do. But the work ahead will certainly be more difficult and dangerous than the simple pragmatism of a ballot cast.

Dancing While the World Burns

Way before the election results, I had booked up a bunch of outings with friends, going to gigs and hitting up artistic events. And, wow, I am so glad I did! 

A certain amount of this is just autumn in the Bay Area. Halloween is at least a month long, and that kicks in just after the school year starts, with all the events that entails, and then we roll into the holidays. Even in normal years, this is a busy time. 

But a prevailing theme amongst activists I follow is the reiteration of creating community, gathering together, and not isolating with one's own worry and fear. And I bumbled into a preset schedule that's kept me mingling, kept the conversations going, allowed opportunities to dance it out and give each other hugs and strategize for what comes next. 

In the aftermath of this extremely stupid electoral result, and the onslaught of chaos we're already enduring in the mere weeks that have followed, it's been really awesome to be out with people who inspire me, and to be reminded that human history is made of endurance through awful chapters, during which we still make art, still find love, and muddle our way through. 

I was really afraid of getting left behind on Baby Island, alone and overwhelmed with exhaustion as I tried to figure out our new family configuration. That's what I muddled through before, alongside the horrors of Trump Round One. So I aggressively packed my itinerary with events that lifted me up, and after the baby is in bed, many nights I'm out in the world living my own life, thanks to my lovely husband, helpful friends, and excellent babysitters. (Baby Island is also a really lovely refuge right now, full of tender moments and warm snuggles, but I don't want to be marooned.)

It matters more than ever now. Last night, I was out at a friend's show that was beautiful, cathartic, and open to grief and healing. It was a date night, and we brought friends who were new to the crowd. I hugged people I've known for half my life now, let the performers surprise me, and we closed with a powerful message from the event's producer about finding the commonality of life and unity despite everything. 

So, it's all serious, but we still need to play. We need to find each other in the mess. That is how we transcend the worst of it all, and cultivate the creativity that lifts us out of the muck. 

Go support your local artists, spend your money on live events, and embrace the moment as well as each other. Time is short, and history is long. I hope to see you on a dance floor soon. 

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. 

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” 

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Sleight of Hand, Hands Full

Holding my baby last night, nursing him, I let myself retreat into the lavishness of that embrace, the peace and beauty of our quiet moment together, a safe space insulated from an outside world growing more chaotic and dangerous. 

And it was beautiful, though it also instantly and viscerally brought me back to doing that with my first baby, seven years ago. How it felt to keep him safe through instability, the heavy lift of making a happy universe of our own at home in the midst of the betrayal inflicted by the adult world. It felt like I wrapped myself bodily around my baby to protect him from a car crash that rolled on for four years.

At the end of those years, my body was aged from chronic stress. I had to sit back, rehabilitate myself, breathe deep and heal. I will forever be grateful to Joe Biden for providing the years of relative normality that gave me space to catch my breath and show up for my child less burdened than I had been in his earliest moments.

Now, it starts again, with my rights severely eroded, with a new babe in arms. I think the state of the country will be significantly worse, and I am braced for impact. I feel it, bodily. I have told these stories before, I know, but we keep staying stuck living through it, so I have to keep talking about it.

I have to say, I do truly hate Trump and his supporters for stealing so much joy from my parenting years. I don't see myself working on that feeling anytime soon. I doubt I'll have the space to do so, with the constant assaults to come. The nightmares of their creation have robbed me of bandwidth I would have otherwise devoted to more imaginative games with my babies. It’s hard to fully play when I’m so exhausted. They have kept me fighting, and have released such ugliness into the world that I have had to devote even more work to counter at home. I’m trying so hard to cultivate love and hope here, and they continue to exist as evil black holes, warping the gravity of our society as my children try to find their balance in life. 

I have to explain all of this as a mother, contextualizing the cruelty in age-appropriate ways, and it is tiresome, painful, and draining. It is also easiest with the babies, because I can be their world. As my eldest gets bigger, however, he sees this rot himself. It hits different when he needs an explanation for this lack of justice, these moral failures, this racism, sexism, and abuse. He is expected to cooperate, be kind, and respect others, even as none of that is modeled by the most visible figure in our country, who evades accountability at every turn, habitually defrauding and harming others in plain view. I can't hide this from my child; I can only continue to explain the pathology of it, and hope he embeds deeply a sense that this is not right.

The beautiful microcosm I’m building at home is sustained in a force field of my own creation, not impervious but impressively strong. The nucleus is portable; I can uproot us and plant the seed again somewhere else if I need to. I hold that strength in my heart, ready to expand for my children whenever needed.

But I deeply, deeply resent that so many of these tender moments have been tinged with the contamination of their larger context. I wish I could have spent more days with both arms wrapped around my children, instead of using one to hold the crushing forces of the world at bay.

The Horrors Persist, But So Do I

I keep wanting to write about this election, and it's hard to even know where to begin. 

It's horrifying that it's close. There's only one way that we tip the scales, and that is to vote, and to talk to each other about these issues as we march to the polls. If you are eligible to vote, you need to vote, wherever you are. 

The other day, I had a conversation with a politically conservative loved one, in which we discussed abortion bans and their impact on women's lives in the United States right now. He sighed heavily, and let me know that he saw the horrors. I asked him directly to vote for Kamala Harris, because the other guy is a  danger to me and other people he loves. 

I have a backup plan if this all goes wrong, but most of my nearest and dearest don't. I'm not living through another four years of the United States eating itself while I'm trying to raise small children. I can get them out of here, but not everyone. 

So I'm going to vote like I don't have another option. I'm going to use my vote to help buoy Harris to the presidency so we can continue to have tough conversations. I've happily voted for Kamala before, and it's honestly an honor to do so again in a historically consequential way, but this is about more than that. 

We are already hearing the orange oaf truthfully state that he wants to turn the military on our citizens for protesting. His own advisors have called him a fascist and explained how he admires dictators.  His closing arguments on the campaign trail have been promises of violence, racism and misogyny. He used his previous presidential term to erode our international standing, make the rich richer, and endanger women; to demonize difference, degrade our environment, and elevate christofascism to our highest offices. 

2020 wrung me out. My first child was born in 2017, and together we attended so many protests, made so many phone calls, knocked doors, spoke up. January 6th, 2021 started with joy about Georgia's contributions to the Senate, and within two hours of that celebration I was watching, horrified, as congresspeople I follow were live-tweeting a coup. 

By the time Biden was safely inaugurated, I needed a break to nestle in with my family and rebuild. After so much national instability, I bet you needed some normal, too. 

But the side effect of needing that normality is that we seem to have forgotten the big lessons we needed to take forward. As someone else wonderfully put it, the only excuse for voting for Donald Trump now is having just woken up from an 8-year coma. 

Kamala Harris is a brilliant, thoughtful politician, a joyful warrior who is presenting policies to make having a family safer, to make buying a house easier, and to stop the horror of rising maternal and infant mortality, among so many things. Her lived experience has brought her through so many angles on our nations toughest problems. She is deeply experienced, and has a record of accomplishment that proves her brilliance and commitment. I am excited about her presidency, and I also don't agree with her on everything. I look forward to continuing the work that her administration will make possible, even without perfect agreement. 

Meanwhile, Donald Trump stands there, old and visibly losing his mind, exhausted but viciously going mad, a poor person's idea of a rich person trying to outrun a lifetime of fraud and abuse of working people. He has had so, so, so many decades of throwing those who stand with him under the bus at the first opportunity. He is a convicted felon who has thrown in his lot with our enemies, so long as they flatter his brittle ego. He is a coward, a draft-dodger, a serially bankrupt loser who arguably only ran for president in the first place to keep himself out of jail, and I suspect that's much of his motivation still. 

It's been a long road. Take a deep breath, and make your plan to vote. Move democracy forward. Get it done.