A few words on the futility of despair

Look, I'm not going to belabor this.

I shouldn't be where I am right now.

I shouldn't be a respected member of the library community, recognized as such by the fact that I'm a manager on the County's contact tracing project.

I spent decades hiding, my knotted tongue convincing me that I could never amount to anything, resigned to accepting whatever job came my way because I'd never find anything better.

I have known the depths of despair. Not to the point of considering suicide. But most certainly being adjacent to that dark country.

All of this was true, until it wasn't. Until the price of despair was no longer a price I was willing to pay. I wasn't going to exact my final quietus, and remaining where I was also was untenable.

I also come from a family of immigrants. I come from a family which had never imagined it would have to immigrate. It came here, penniless, starting all over again. My brothers went to middle school not knowing a single word of English. And this family prospered.

My family survived its demons. I survived my own demons. And I'll be damned to hell and condemned by all those who struggled to help me to get where I am if I'm going to give power and agency to a motherfucking goddamned scammer from Jamaica, Queens, who can't string two coherent words together.

I came across this tweet which encapsulates where we are:

But people are stuck on "but what if."

The strongman con really works. It sends us into what if rabbit holes and keeps us terrified.

It's possible to over-learn a lesson, and people have over-learned the lesson from 2016.

Yes, Trump is dangerous. He's also not invincible.

— Teri Kanefield (@Teri_Kanefield) July 20, 2020

The strong-man gambit is to over-awe you with his power. It's to make you hopeless. It's to make you accept your fate.

This works in Russia. This works in Hungary. This works in Turkey. Those countries are autocracies which had a veneer of democracy slapped on top of them, but the veneer has worn off. Expecting the land of the Tsars and of the Commissars to become a liberal democracy without something like a Marshall Plan after 1989 was the greatest geopolitical mistake made by the US and the West. It was fated to spiral back into dictatorship.

We are not Russia, or Hungary, or Turkey. We are a country with a two-century habit of telling our betters to go fuck off. We are a country which has been battered, bruised, and torn, but has always managed to become just a little bit better, year by year, day by day. Do you actually think that the reaction we have now to George Floyd's murder would have happened even two years ago? The greatest mistake enemies make is selling Americans short. Yes, too many of us are apathetic or outright malignant. But most of us, the great majority, aren't. And woe betide anyone who wakens the sleeping giant.

The Rat is not a genius. He is the beneficiary of the greatest, most fortuitous confluence of events to ever bless one individual. And what has he done with that good fortune? Nothing. He has wrecked a lot, a lot which will have to be repaired and atoned for. The debt we as a country will owe those children held in cages will be one not paid off for decades. But this country hasn't rolled over. It hasn't lain supine before the Rat's overweening power. To quote the poet: These are not smart people, and things got out of hand.

Now, people are panicking over the deployment of the Gestapo in Portland, and the threat the Rat is making to do so in other cities. These are not the moves of a man secure in his position. This is him exacting as much damage as he can on his perceived enemies before he meets his end. This is the Nero Decree. Except it's being met by lawsuits and naked women. Either you roll over and mourn that all is lost, or you fight. 

Jesus Christ, just this weekend I wrote a paean to a giant who did not back down, who did not despair, who did not concede that all was lost. I know who I want to be like, and it's not like some Twitter blue check who trades in the forlorn. I am a free human being, and I will fight for my freedom and that of my fellow citizens. 

I know the times are dark. But the power to bring light is within us. It is the only option we have. The other option is death, and I just turned 51; I plan to be around for a long time, living and laughing and savoring existence.

Snap out of it. This is our test, and we dare not fail it.