Remember, the right wing is scared shitless of people like us winning. We're *their* Thing That Goes Bump In The Night, and it wouldn't be that way if we were even half as weak as we tend to think we are.

Among other things, the queer furry/fannish crowd has shown *amazing* resistance to reactionary politics. The alt-right made an explicit effort to infiltrate us and were routed good and hard. We ARE the bulwark, and while the psychic siege continues, we are holding.

Our opponents fight like nothing so much as ringwraiths, or maybe the echthroi from A Wind In The Door. They give their enemies despair and their allies a false sense of impunity. They wield some real power, but their ability to actually build anything sustainable is *sharply* limited. (The degree to which they remind me of late-Soviet apparatchiks is amazing, honestly—old grey men, so far up their own asses ideologically, they don't see the foundations are crumbling right underneath them.)

Even their politics can only exist because they're burning through old compromises—compromises that won't be there to protect them from us when the winds change. We are their monsters. We are our respective countries' T-cells and macrophages.

All we have to do is now is not give in to despair, and believe just as hard as they do. Specifically, we have to believe that their days are numbered and the future, if there is one, is ours. There IS no glorious Republican future, because what they're doing will simply not work. I think we're all in agreement with that here. There is only our world or no world at all, and nobody in a state of any real power—or any state except utter desperation—would opt for the latter.

@zebratron2084

I hate to be contrary, but this feels dangerously idealistic and short sighted. I don't quite agree with this assessment, because while there isn't a glorious Republican future, it doesn't mean they won't kill us all and dump us in a very large hole (Happily!) in order to try and get there.

@Phorm (DISCLAIMER: Rant incoming, and I'm genuinely sorry, hun. I... I'm not mad at you, I'm LIVID at the forces that have got you feeling that down and that screwed. *hug if accepted* I can't just stand here and not fire back at them.)

You're welcome to believe what you want, but I've gotta be brutally honest here: I can't see how it's been leading you to anywhere good.

I put up with 15 years of constant doomsaying in one of my previous relationships, and people on Livejournal saying Bush was also gonna round us up and put us in camps, and here we are still standing. So maybe I've just formed a callus about these things and you're dead right.

I'm not angry at you in the least, and I'm not gonna try to force you to change sides on this, but I'm also not buying any of the pessimism personally. Our enemies are fierce, but I think that *severely* undercuts our own strength and potential ferocity. We're talking like 2016 doomed us all, after we "lost" the vote by -2.5 percent. I see every indication that we *could* spring back from the Trump Era, and the main thing stopping us is our own lack of the determination and confidence our opponents have.

This idea didn't come out of nowhere. I've been reading Gary Lachman's Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump, which details how the kind of resignation, fear, and desperation you've been feeling—and darlin', you'd better believe I have ALL the sympathy in the world for you, you've had it real rough in your position—is a direct and knowing consequence of their Putin-esque mindfuckery strategies. It is also the *main* thing they have going for them, the ability to cast illusions of real strength, when all they really have is the ability to manipulate a few basic glitches of human psychology, on both sides, over and over again.

I've also been reading about Hitler's rise to power. As much as I've come to agree the modern right meets almost all of Umberto Eco's warning signs of a proto-fascist society... there are some fascinating differences in this strain. Authoritarians in the 1930's didn't have to pretend they're not authoritarians. Racists didn't have to pretend they're not racists. And they didn't live in a society where everybody was under constant media scrutiny and public debate. There is a whole new level of cognitive dissonance at work here, and I agree with you 100% that it's scary and evil and a genuine cosmic injustice that these yoinks are holding back our society during one of the most dangerous periods of human history.

But I don't think this system will hold for long enough to become *that* sort of violent. They can't even oppress a few thousand migrants—a grand old American tradition that's not even that far out of step with our history, tragically—without massive backlash and public debate. (NGL, it concerns me deeply how little progress we've made on that, but again, the argument isn't "terrible things aren't happen" or "they'll go away on their own," it's "we haven't even BEGUN to deploy our actual power to stop these things, and when we do, they WILL be effective."

Additionally, the GOP has tried, what, FIVE TIMES to tank the ACA and still failed? They've tried over and over again to sink the far-left block in the GOP and their approval numbers just get higher and higher. I've never seen democratic socialism come this close to the mainstream in my lifetime. And Trump can't even crest a 45% approval rating. There's an enormous speedbump between him and whatever dreams of utter authoritarian power he has. And while I am indeed pretty scared about corruption and Russian intervention in 2020, I think that risks a huge fatal overreach for them... and if they do (I think wisely for them, which means they probably won't do it) play it straight, the polls are pretty solidly in our favor. (I know, I know, they were for Hillary too... but that looks to me like a mixture of last-minute overconfidence, Comey's October Surprise, and Independents leaning right... which every statistical and historical indication is that they will NOT do in 2020...)

I don't want to make it sound like I don't think he's a threat, nor that everything's going to be okay by default. The modern GOP is absolutely a serious and dangerous threat, and it will take decades to clean up the entire mess. But honestly... your resignation and despair, and that of my other friends and allies, scare me more than the enemy itself does. I'm not talking about "we do nothing and everything will be okay," we're talking "there is a real threat here but we have the power and numbers to dispel it, IF we keep faith and stick together." They may very well still try to ruin us if they reach a big enough of success *or* failure. My prediction, please understand, is that stopping them utterly is still WELL within our power, as long as we don't go full Scream Of The Shalka and hide in our basements for fear of waking them.

Only history will vindicate one or both of us... though at this point... I am QUITE willing to make a wager with you, if you're that confident. *evil grin* I don't mean to trifle... but I figure if we all get killed by 2024, I won't have to pay up, so it's a pretty sweet deal for me admittedly. :>

Love ya, hon. All I'm saying is stay as strong as you can—and if you can't, let the rest of us be strong for you. The battle is gonna happen, and it might get pretty ugly, but its results are FAR, FAR, FAR from determined. You're talking like I'm saying "a Death Star in orbit isn't worth getting upset over," but what I'm actually trying to tell you is "I think there's a huge weakness in its ventilation system..." And I honestly can't see how "the Empire is undefeatable, let's give up" is any more responsible of an attitude than "let's at least send in a squadron and see if we can fuck this Vader asshole up."

@zebratron2084

On a less relevant note, maybe next time instead of a Jeff Winger speech, we can get a Doug Winger speech.

Just makes more of an impression, ya'know?

@Phorm Heh. Anyhow, I'm going for a bit because the last thing on earth I want is to fight you, and I ain't taking any chances given the last couple years I've had... but I still care about you and I will be back. *hug*