When darkness falls
Also: Jobs and links!
Sarah Jaffe — whom many of you know — is probably one of the most-plugged in people I know when it comes to covering the world of leftist organizing. Especially in the United Kingdom.
So, when the sun, the moon, and all the goddamn stars fell on in Thursday’s UK General Election, I really wanted to hear what she thought. I trust her more than most people to tell me, and everyone else, what happened and what may happen. She didn’t disappoint.
They didn't shock the world. WE didn't shock the world. But just an hour before that exit poll result the press was tweeting that Boris Johnson could potentially lose his seat to a 25-year-old former student organizer, Ali Milani. The biggest hopes crash to earth the hardest, and the feeling of solidarity that was built in this struggle raised hopes so much--in part because it WAS the right thing to be doing. Because Labour had realized that to try to overcome the breach caused by Brexit it needed to be campaigning all across the country, it needed to be listening to people in the places that had voted to Leave, that to undo the damage wreaked by the decades of New Labour it needed to be a social movement once again.
And don't let the recriminations fool you: Labour HAS become a social movement once again. It wasn't a big enough or strong enough or broadly-based enough one to overcome the depths of capitalist realism that have been inculcated by Thatcherism and Blairism and Cameronism and now, goddamnit, now Boris Johnson. But that does not undo the work done by thousands who signed up on Momentum's mycampaignmap site to go talk to strangers by the hundreds, often in cold rain.
It does not undo the work done by Labour's community organizing department, the darling of the Corbyn project and aimed in its first (and we can all only hope not its last) year of existence squarely at finding out what people needed in those "left behind" districts that voted to Leave. At their events members of the Corbyn team did more listening than talking, asking people to talk about what they needed--from better public transit to jobs to weatherproof homes and decent schools in their communities and oh yeah a plan to tackle the ongoing climate crisis. Thinkpiece after thinkpiece has been written in the past few days saying that Labour needs to get back into the community--well, Labour had been trying. That it wasn't enough yet doesn't mean every attempt belongs in the trash. (emphasis added)
There’s so much more there; I linked to this specific issue of her newsletter (to which you really should subscribe, if you haven’t already!) in the very first line above. That’s a quote from one of her London friends. It’s beautifully appropriate for this specific moment.
Because this moment feels dark, folks. There’s just a pervasive futility to every goddamn thing we’re doing, it feels like. Last year, around this time, we still had a relative amount of hope — we’d just elected a Democratic majority to the House of Representatives here in the U.S., we’d come close to winning the Senate, it felt like all the hard work of marching and protesting and working locally was bearing fruit, and we’d finally begin the work of holding a criminally corrupt President (and his henchfolk!) accountable. Right?
Good fucking lord, we were so wrong.
I mean, yes, we’re finally impeaching the motherfucker already, as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) promised to do when first inaugurated this year, but it felt like we had to drag and drag, and then drag again the very Democrats whom we trusted to do the damn job. And all that dragging and pulling and heaving just to get…two articles of impeachment.
As if the concentration camps, and the kidnapping of refugee children, and the outlandish amounts of self-dealing and corruption and pillaging of not just our government agencies but our very resources and good lord, I could keep going but really: what’s the fucking use?
What’s the use when it’s now abundantly clear that the people we elected to, well, oppose simply…won’t?
At the same time — at the same bloody time — that Speaker Nancy Pelosi was solemnly invoking up fully forgotten Original Dads to justify the impeachment of a President so cartoonishly corrupt he literally cannot stop breaking the laws, the Democrats she leads in so-called opposition were making the following deals with this same damn President:
a bogus “paid family-leave” provision that’s basically Ivanka Trump’s plan for federal employees only, which the White House wanted;
continued aid to Saudi Arabia so they can keep bombing the ever-loving hell out of Yemen;
approving a defense funding bill for nearly THREE QUARTERS OF A TRILLION DOLLARS, which includes, among other things:
TRUMP’S SPACE FORCE! THE SPACE FORCE! AKDS!@332!!!@#43!!!
Like, it’s almost as if Nancy Pelosi (and sundry other Washington Democrats) look at impeachment not as if it’s a Constitutional necessity (regardless of what Huddling with Laurence Tribe™ and quoting, IDK, Lemuel Pymer or Enoch Rogers or whomever indicates) but as a hurdle to Getting Things Done™.
Because, you see, that’s why they’re there: to Get Things Done™. Doesn’t matter what those things are, it just matters that, one, they are Done™, and more importantly, that they are seen as Getting Things Done™. Because that’s what The People™ want: to Get…Things…Done™.
I feel for my friend Jesse here. I really do, and real talk: he’s one of the unsung heroes here, because he’s up there on The Hill™ working crushingly hard hours, ensuring the message on impeaching this sad, criminal motherfucker of a President can break through.
So, here’s the thing: there’s a Beltway Bubble. There absolutely is. The thing is, it’s not what people inside the Beltway think it is. It’s rather the opposite: everyone is so fucking convinced that they’re in a bubble, they end up convincing themselves that outside the Beltway Bubble, left is right, up is down, and 2+2=🥝.
In short, they Jedi mind trick themselves into not seeing the fucking droids right in front of their fucking faces.
That is the reason that “savvy” Washington folks think somehow impeachment is a good thing for Trump, despite there being a solid majority of Actual Fucking Real Americans in favor of impeachment. Beltway folks are so convinced they don’t know what Real Americans think, that they literally look at actual hard numbers showing them what the Real Americans they fetishize think — and dismiss them out of hand, because that’s certainly not what Real Americans think.
Which is how you get Beltway folks interviewing the same sad, bitter, pathetic - and I mean that with kindness - folks in diners in places like Utica, OH. That’s what Real Americans look like to these folks, so convinced of their disconnection from America Outside the Beltway.
Except that, if you stop and think about it…why are these ostensible Real Americans living their days in Watts Restaurant in Utica? Like, nobody who’s actually got things to do with their life spends hours in a diner. They’re like the last person you should talk with in order to get a sense of things! They’re like the nice person who sits down next to you in the Red Line to Shady Grove, starts chatting with you about the weather, and then suddenly veers off into talking about the Matarese Gnomes of Zurich.
And in the process of doing all that, they’ve totally — I mean, like utterly, cosmically — missed the real populist movement in this country we love. It is abundantly clear that the majority of Americans despise Trump.
That’s the FiveThirtyEight digest of Donald Trump’s Presidential approval ratings. The only time Trump’s had the public “on his side”, so to speak, was the first ten days of his Presidency. Since February 3, 2017, he’s been underwater — coinciding, you will not be shocked to learn, with his initial Muslim ban.
And yet — and yet! — Beltway folks seem to think there’s some other underlying “majority” that Must Not Be Crossed, else all hell break lose. But there isn’t. There isn’t! There really, really, really fucking isn’t. That’s it. That 42 percent — that’s all he’s got. But because yielding is easier than fighting, that 42 percent feels like it’s 52, or 62, or even 72 percent!
The popular, democratic, majoritarian will to resist Trump — to turn back the tide of a racist, authoritarian Republican Party — absolutely exists. It just lacks the leaders to marshal that will into an unstoppable force to turn back the night threatening to fall.
It lacks those leaders because the ones we have now chose compromise over confrontation, and accommodation over accountability.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can choose new leaders, who will fight back! Is that too much to ask? Are we asking too much for this? Is it beyond our reach? Because if it is, then we’re nothing but lambs led to the slaughter.
I will not go down that way.
I choose to fight back. I choose to rise, not fall. I choose to live, not die. I know that what’s within me, is also within you. And we might lose, but we’ll go down fighting.
Links. And Jobs. And Links. And Jobs.
If you’re looking for measured takes on Labour’s cataclysmic performance last Thursday, Zoe Williams wrote a good one. (The Guardian)
Also good? Gary Younge arguing that Labour’s got to examine why they got wrecked. And Aditya Chakrabortty laying out that this disaster’s been a long time comin’. (The Guardian)
The 2010s were all about Los Memes. Here’s 100 of them that defined this decade. (Buzzfeed, of course it is).
Jia Tolentino is so goddamn good. Here she is writing about “Instagram Face” - how plastic surgery’s used to physically recreate FaceTune filters. Absolutely heart-breaking. (The New Yorker).
I try to include as many links to things as I can because, dammit, I believe in The Web. Here’s Anil Dash eloquently decrying the use of “link in bio”, because it’s killing the Web. (His personal site).
This week’s “just trust me on this one”. Seriously. Read it. It’ll make your holiday visit home way more comprehensible when you meet your chain-email aunt/uncle/cousin, OK? (The New Republic).
It’s gifting season! Which means you should cop these tea towels: one with every Eurovision result ever, and this one with the entire history of English men’s top-flight soccer since 1992. (Etsy - Totally Flagulous).
Are you a fan of The Crown? If the answer’s yes…then you should apply to be Her Majesty’s social media director. No, seriously. (The Royal Household).
Color of Change wants a Digital Manager. This could be you. Apply.
Elizabeth Warren’s campaign is hiring for all kinds of things. I’m sure there’s something there for you. If you apply, LMK, we’ll talk, & I’ll see about putting in a word for you.
Listen: shit is fucked up and bullshit. All we’ve got is each other. That’s what “solidarity” means, in the end. So: I love you, I see you, and if you need anything, I’m here for you. Just hit reply, and we’ll talk.