We’ve always lived in hell
Nothing about last night should surprise you.
Last night Kamala Harris lost. She didn’t just lose, she lost spectacularly. It wasn’t just a matter of technicalities and Electoral College shenanigans — Trump won the popular vote for the first time in his political career. It’s never been more over for Harris. Everything after that is just a formality.
People keep trying to rationalize all this by pointing to any number of things that could have led to this result: Kamala tacked too far right, Kamala went all in on the Gazan genocide, the Republicans cheated, people just gave up on the Dems, the economy or something, etc.
But I think the simple answer is this: America is a fundamentally evil nation.
Let’s come to cases and admit it to ourselves: the foundation of this nation was built over the graves of indigenous people, slaves, immigrants, and women. America was founded by rich Bostonians who wanted to take over more indigenous land and the English Crown wouldn’t let them. The so-called “Founding Fathers” punted on slavery because the southern colonies didn’t want to give it up, thus kicking the can down the road and setting things up for the civil war. Racism and slavery is at the root of this country and remains with us.
And of course it’s not just racism and misogyny. LGBTQ people have long been currency in an endless culture war in which one side wants to see us dead and the other side will gladly sacrifice us if it gets them something they actually care about, which usually doesn’t have anything to do with actual people. The disabled are an afterthought.
We like to talk a big game about liberty, justice, and democracy, but what are those things really? They’re abstract concepts with little bearing on the day to day lives of ordinary people. Do I have liberty to live the way I want, to have reliable access to the healthcare I need without putting myself in crippling debt, to walk the street as a queer person without putting myself at risk of being assaulted or murdered? No. Can I expect justice if something does happen to me? Also no. And like I said last time, democracy is a permanently open door for illiberal elements to seize power.
And people like that. Deep down, most Americans are perfectly fine with all of that. The average American does not care about you. They do not care about your loved ones. They barely care about their loved ones. The average American is, quite frankly, a frightened, threatened monkey, who sees public health as tyranny, who thinks the most obvious AI slop is real, who is addicted to their lung-destroying vapes, and who is so thoroughly unprincipled that the easiest boycotts in the world are too much of an inconvenience for their primitive monkey brain. The average American went into the polls and voted for slavery (in a historically blue state!!) and against rent control and raising the minimum wage. The average American does not appreciate art, does not appreciate the act of creation, does not appreciate the act of emotional expression. The average American is perfectly happy to let ChatGPT and Midjourney do everything. The average American does not want to help the struggling, the drowning, the dying. The average American can’t even just be fucking nice: have you noticed how the R-word is back? For about 15 years it was considered a slur; but now I hear it every day, from people I would never expect it from. It’s like we’re back in 2004, but even worse because Chester Bennington isn’t here anymore and his replacement sucks, personally and professionally.
If Americans want to point fingers for how the election went, they should be pointing fingers at themselves for not giving a single solitary fuck about each other.
This is America. This has always been America. We’re not “individualistic,” this country has made sociopathy its guiding principle from day one. We are stupid, mean, petty and selfish, and in America, those are virtues. Those are how you get ahead in life in America.
There are some people who can’t wrap their heads around this. They believe in the fundamental good in people. They believe the cops are here to help, that the government doesn’t lie to people, that society is nice and orderly and things happen like their textbooks told them. These people aren’t just naive; they are willfully so, because it is more convenient to them than admitting that this country — like pretty much every colonialist project and the moribund European empires that built them — is built on a foundation of white supremacist hate and greed. To admit that would be to admit their part in it; it’s an inconvenient truth, and so they pretend that everything is hunky-dory. They vote blue no matter who, they recycle, they drink wheatgrass smoothies, they bring canvas bags to the grocery store, they mull the pros and cons of going vegan, they have a hybrid car and are thinking of going fully electric. They catch you talking about revolution? Or daring to suggest that the Democratic party leadership needs to be dismantled, perhaps in a way so shocking that it’s a lesson to the others? They’ll reach for their iPhones and Samsungs to turn you in.
I noticed that a lot of progressives, and the liberals who play at being progressive, can’t understand the right-wing, can’t understand the underlying logic behind what conservatives and fascists actually believe. I’ve been saying for a while now that the most important video in Ian Danskin’s Alt-Right Playbook series is Always A Bigger Fish; in it, he explains that underneath all the bullshit about economies and minority rights is the core belief that society is a natural hierarchy, and that the people at the top are there through their own gumption and hard work, the people who are at the bottom belong there, and everyone else is somewhere in the middle. The conservative — and the fascist — views progressive agitation for equal rights as a violation of this natural order, because, in the conservative’s view, it’s a call for not just flattening this natural hierarchy, not just putting the people who are naturally superior on the same level as the people who are naturally inferior, but for reversing their roles, and that is a terrifying idea to the conservative. Fascists believe this too, but they do it at scale — it’s not just about wealth and power, but about ethnicity and gender. After all, what is a conservative, but a diet fascist?
But I came to the realization recently that most people, regardless of political affiliation, seem to believe this. Look at how the downballot votes went — “mixed bag” is a generous description, I’d personally use the term “utter shitshow.” California — California!! — passed Proposition 36 (increased penalties for petty theft and drug crimes) with 70% of the vote. Why was this necessary? It’s a middle finger to the desperate. Most people don’t steal for kicks, or because it’s the easy way out. They steal because they have to. They steal because they’re starving, or their baby is starving. They steal because it’s their only remaining option. They do drugs because it’s easier than raw-dogging reality — do you really think your morning coffees and evening chardonnay are any different? Or how about the fact that Proposition 6 — an abolition of prison slavery — failed, garnering only 45% of the vote. Why? What’s the value in making prisoners — who are already thrown in deep holes separated from society for years regardless of crime — perform involuntary labor? How does that make us a better nation? How does the Thirteenth Amendment give us any sort of moral high ground over the Confederacy? If a famously liberal state like California can turn against its own poor and desperate, what’s that say about the rest of America? What’s that say about liberalism?
After all, what is a liberal, but a diet conservative?
I didn’t want to be writing this. I just wanna write about movies and video games, man. That I’m having to do this? This is all your fault. Yes, you, the person reading this. You and everyone else, myself included. I’m not saying you’re a bad person. But I am saying that you are a part of an evil world. Even if you’re not American, this still applies to you, because this isn’t just about American politics. After all, it’s not just America that is descending into a right-wing hellscape. Have you taken a look at Germany lately? Or Canada? The UK supposedly is bucking this trend but I wouldn’t trust TERF Island any further than I could throw it. White supremacy and misogyny are the twin spectres that haunt this world and elections — which will always only reflect the current whims of the society that holds them — are a lousy bulwark against them. So yes, you’re as much to blame for this mess as anyone else, because every action you take, every decision you make, is inevitably going to exist in the context of the evil world you live in, and is inevitably going to have unintended ripple effects that will nullify the immediate goodness of everything you do. Didn’t you see The Good Place? (You should watch The Good Place.) Even voting unintentionally makes the world a worse place, because it lulls people into the complacent — and privileged — belief that they can just vote their way out of every bad situation they find themselves in, that voting is the be-all end-all of political engagement, and that the many other options in the toolbox not only should be left behind, but don’t exist.
So I ask you: what are you going to do about all this? Some of you already are mad at me, telling me, “I do this this and this! I organize, I hand out fliers, blah blah blah.” Good for you! Now tell me with a straight face that any of that has ever mattered. Oh, you got out the votes for your county? Cool, if the election had just been restricted to your county maybe Harris would have won. Oh, you helped defeat an anti-abortion measure in your state? They’re just gonna drag out another one in a couple years and they’ll cheat to make sure you can’t kill it again. That’s the thing about the right — they’re not going to stop, they’re not going to let an election defeat make them change course. We get rid of Trump — his evil black heart gives out or whatever — and what happens? They put JD Vance or someone in his place, someone who is just as evil but actually halfway smart. That’s worse. This is just going to keep going and going. That’s American politics, now and forever. Electoralism is a dead end. We are at the threshold of one of the darkest times in human history. People are going to die because of this election. The sooner you make peace with that the sooner we can have an honest conversation about what the next twenty years are going to look like. It’s time to start thinking about other options — the kind of stuff I can’t talk about on social media because I’m not right-wing enough. You know exactly what I mean, even if you’re afraid to admit it.
In the meantime, if you haven’t joined an org, go do it. If you’re in an org, stay in it. It won’t fix anything, but you can maybe make things a little better for the people around you. That’s really the only thing we can do, for now. Consider buying some protection, especially if you’re marginalized. Consider making a plan to help your LGBTQ friends, your disabled family members, your immigrant neighbors. And above all, don’t be a fucking coward. Don’t be the kind of person who would have reported Anne Frank.
We live in hell. But even in hell we may find redemption.
