The impossible takes a little longer

No, I’m not talking about my novel of that title but the old Marine slogan: the difficult we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer.

It’s easy to think right now that defeating the Republican Fascist Party is impossible. And they do have advantages, not just in their power but their agenda. They gain by smashing the government’s protections for minorities, women, the poor; we need government to get the job done (Plus a number of Democrats are still clinging to the belief that what America wants is to see them being sensible and centrist and reaching across the aisle, as witness Chuck Schumer announcing that Of Course he’ll approve the Repub funding bill. As Ocasio-Cortez says, this is profoundly misreading the moment).

Right-wingers can form an effective coalition because they’re united (for now) in hating liberals, LGBTQ, non-submissive women, etc. It’s harder for our side to come up with a united agenda. Especially when we have to look out for everyone‘s rights: if we can only win a limited number of victories, someone will be understandably pissed if they’re not the victory we pick (note: This is not a suggestion that we should throw anyone under the bus. That’s evil and lousy politics both).

to fight for everyone and if we can only win a limited number of victories … well, someone on our side will be pissed if they’re not the victory we pick.

Dan Sinker, looking at the Ku Klux Klan at its peak of power — the 1920s incarnation — disagrees that it’s hopeless. As he points out, the KKK was unimaginably huge and popular (see here) and seemed invincible. It wasn’t. “Fascism always fails. It is destructive and it is awful and not everyone lives to see the other side, but it always, always fails. It takes work. It takes fighting back. It takes throwing punches. It takes doing whatever it takes to beat it back, to protect those that are most vulnerable from its many attacks. And through it all, it feels impossible that we will win.”

In that spirit, some links:

“For a very few people, the first Trump term was a live-action role-playing game; for everyone else, it was a YouTube channel.” — from a piece pondering whether The Felon’s support is less deeply rooted than it appears.

Tesla stock is tanking which is pissing Musk off. Sure, he’s still the world’s wealthiest man but he’s losing money! Outrageous! It can only be the work of evil conspiracies of evil just like everything else that’s going wrong. And everyone should stop worrying about FOTUS giving Putin everything he wants.

Unlike a lot of college leaders, the Dean of Georgetown Law is not collaborating.

A script for calling on Democratic senators to fight.

“The origins of that populism are simply not biblical. So I would say that white North American evangelicals — let’s be specific — have strayed from the fundamental biblical conviction that government is understood to be a gift of God and its primary business is to secure justice in society. And then this haunting theme of the quartet of the vulnerable…” — from a post by Kristen Kobes duMez.

“Are you or your group working on campaigns or strategies to interrupt criminalization, policing, and state violence, and want thought partnership or support?”

“People who think (or pretend to think) that Zelenskyy would get a better deal if he would kiss the ass of the bullies who brought him in for a humiliation ritual are either falling for Vance’s obvious con or are outright collaborators.”

Kim Davis, the county clerk who refused to let anyone in her office issue marriage licenses to gay couples, has lost another court case.

“Around a dozen current and former federal workers are behind a new website created as an outlet to share anonymous stories and technical expertise about the Department of Government Efficiency’s dismantling of government agencies.

“On Presidents’ Day, thousands marched—many in bitterly cold weather—against the Trump administration in a series of “No Kings Day” protests organized by volunteer nonprofit organizing group #50501. The message apparently did not translate in Mar-a-Lago, though.”

“”Unlike our opponents, we don’t believe that love and care is finite.

We don’t believe that trans people are only allowed to exist when they poll well. We don’t believe that there’s a binary choice between supporting broke American citizens and immigrants. We don’t believe that feminism is an attack on men, or that anti-racism is an attack on white people. We don’t believe that justice and peace for Palestine is mutually exclusive with protecting Jewish communities from antisemitism. We don’t believe in either implicit or explicit eugenics for our disabled neighbors. We don’t believe that only some of us deserve healthcare or childcare or a decent education or healthy air or communities free from violence. We merely believe that we all deserve a country that loves us for once. We believe that there is enough to go around, but only if we choose it.”