How to Survive a Fascist United States
Plot twist: That's what we've been doing this whole time.
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Dear Beloved,
Have you opened a cabinet in your grandmother’s kitchen and had a din of old cookware clatter to the ground in an embarrassing racket? Lately, that’s what it feels like anytime I open my mouth.
Current events bang against each other in my head all day. If I’m not thinking about Palestine, I’m thinking about Seattle politics. If I’m not thinking of Seattle’s petty, money-worshipping politics, I’m thinking about the global tech companies that ruined this city which inevitably brings me back to the silent genocide in Congo. When I’m not thinking about the children of Congo, I’m thinking about the children dying in classrooms because of US-made assault weapons and when I think about those weapons, I think about them pouring into Haiti. When I think about Haiti, I think about the police force Kenya sent there while Ruto brutalized young protestors at home.
When I think of the young protestors in Kenya, I think of the protestors across university campuses around the world. I think of protestors in Mexico City, India, London, Vancouver, Chile, South Korea, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Japan, Germany, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines.
I think of all of us.
Ironically, given how all of this connects back to US imperialism, I’ve thought little about the presidential election 10 days away I actually feel an odd sense of peace compared to the last election cycle - the peace that comes with the acceptance that this election changes nothing.
I cycled through the stages of grief in the past year - the selfish denial, the helpless anger. I bargained all year, pitifully grasping when the primaries ran, when Biden dropped out, when Harris chose Walz, when, when, when…
Then stopped, and depression was there waiting for me on a bench. I sat with it and finally let myself accept that voting is not the force for change I was sold in 2020. As I finally wrapped my mind around this, I admitted to myself: I was so fucking stupid.
I think this admission is what keeps many Democrat supporters from facing this cold truth of American politics. It’s the same thing Democrat supporters made fun of Trump supporters for - the refusal to admit wrong in the face of damning evidence.
Most Democrat supporters, though, simply prioritize their own personal comfort over collective well-being and liberation.
“I'm not trying to knock out the Democrats for the Republicans. We'll get to them in a minute. But it is true; you put the Democrats first and the Democrats put you last.”
- Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet”
Please note, Beloved, I want to make a distinction here: I intentionally use the word “supporter,” not Democrat, for a reason. While one may register themselves a member of the party, vote “blue no matter who” across the ballot in every election like a good dog, make no mistake: That is not a Democrat.
Democrats are the ones cozying up to sponsors and wealthy donors in private parties. Democrats are the ones who make empty promises and then do nothing for the people who voted them into power. Democrats are so disconnected from you, me, any of us, that it laughable for any working body to declare themselves a Democrat.
The Democrat Party put on a good show, though, with their GOP friends on the political theatre. They fight like rabid dogs for that bone when it comes to election season but when it comes down to the aims of the “most lethal fighting force in the world,” the two parties are the best of friends.
Now I barely glance at the poll numbers. I do not share my colleagues’ anxieties over the coming election results. I know this election is not in working hands. We never had a say in this process. When I think of the 2024 US presidential election, all I hear is the rising notes of Schubert’s “Ave Maria” as each days moves slower than the last and the politics tension rises towards climax.
Whatever happens after November 5th is merely the next part of our generations-long fight for liberation.
Before the 2016 US presidential election night, articles considering the possibility of a fascist United States have populated the internet. In May 2016, the Washington Post published an opinion piece by Robert Kagan warning how dangerous it was to normalize Donald Trump as a candidate. In February 2016, Slate weighed what brand of fascist to qualify Trump. Now he is the Democrats’ highly marketable boogeyman, and the fearmongering “Save our democracy!” campaign of 2020 is once again this election’s centerfold.
“Save our democracy,” they say when we have an electoral college.
“Save our democracy,” they say when the prison industrial complex swallows up human life and spits out disenfranchised people with a scarlet FELON on their chests.
“Save our democracy,” they say when voter registrations are purged and state-sanctioned police terrorize voting activists.
“Save our democracy,” they say when time and time again, those elected actively choose wealthy donors and lobbyists over the people who put them in their seat of power.
“Save our democracy from the fascist!” they say laughably, hypocritically, tauntingly.
As their peers on the other side of the aisle do, the Democrats frighten their supporters with horror stories of Other and what the Other will do if you don’t support the morally superior party. They correctly mark Trump as a fascist, but a fascist would not rise to such power if the system were not built by and for fascists.
What will we do if the US falls to fascism?
Beloved, I take you gently by the hand and tell you that no healthy, life-loving political system would have put us in this situation again. Fascism has always been here. It is woven into the very fabric of the bleeding flag that Americans are socially pressured to pledge allegiance while an anthem written by an enslaver plays.
How do we survive US fascism? It’s what we’re doing right now. It is what we have always done, and we deserve more than to survive. Our community deserves to thrive -and voting will not give us what’s inherently ours by right. A politician will not stop fascism’s rising tides, and the government will not save us when its hurricanes come to sweep our lives away.
The real question, Beloved, is this: How do we break the imperial cycle of violence, destruction, and death?
We must save each other again and again. We must take direct action. We must take care of each other, the land, and the waters. We must fight back.
“And once we see that all these other sources to which we’ve turned have failed, we stop turning to them and turn to ourselves. We need a self help program, a do-it -- a-do-it-yourself philosophy, a do-it-right-now philosophy, a it’s-already-too-late philosophy. This is what you and I need to get with, and the only time -- the only way we're going to solve our problem is with a self-help program. Before we can get a self-help program started we have to have a self-help philosophy.”
- Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet”
Seeds for Change
Take this time to educate yourself about American Indian Boarding Schools. Tlingit climate activist
Birdy Same has created this list of resources for education and action you can take now.Read a Disability Justice Approach to Disaster Assistance and begin talking with your neighbors about how you’ll take care of each other during inevitable climate disaster.
Check out Soul Fire Farm’s Food Sovereignty Action Steps and feed your community.
Consider Mutual Aid Disaster Relief’s third edition of Earth First! Direct Action Manual.
In this Substack article,
shares a mutual aid index and discusses climate-induced migration from a justice lens.
Call for Mutual Aid: Help My Palestinian Neighbors in Seattle
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Already neighbors in Seattle have helped resource the family with clothes and connecting them to local resources to access employment leads, programs, and English classes. Right now their biggest need is financial.
Donate today to help our new neighbors keep up with the high costs of living in Seattle and help evacuate their parents still in Palestine to safety.
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Thanks for the mention, aleksander. Unfortunately, I would agree the US already became fascist. Some say after the Spanish-American war, and others will comment how capitalism inevitably leads to this. The mutual aid index intends to spotlight different ways we work together to survive. When we build these networks, it will allow us to make societal change. Great work