Not Far Enough
I just re-read a post from last week and realized I didn’t go quite far enough. It was that one about April Fools’ Day successes, where Democrats wiped the floor in Wisconsin and gave the barbarians in Florida something to think about. I had special praise for the voters of Mississippi and the speech-making heroics of Corey Booker. A man who can hold his bladder for a day has quite a future in American politics. Speaking only for myself, I couldn’t have done it.
But you knew all of that as well as I did. I now see that post a little more clearly: an efficient march from fact to fact without shedding much light on the dynamics at play. I’m still not sure I can say anything important, but the act of storytelling may have been reason enough.
What I mean by that is that we’re in a dangerous slump. The election in November was an existential catastrophe. Donald Trump may have lied to us shamelessly, but Project 2025 told us all we needed, that we were on the verge of a regime that would gut the government, decimate the poor, and boost the profile of Christian Nationalism. I remember telling myself that it couldn’t really happen. Presidents are always constrained by gravity, and their advisors trim the edges of their worst excesses.
This president, however, gives the lie to all of that, in part because he is a feral child, and in part because he is surrounded by true believers who are, arguably, as demented as he is. Are Hegseth and Kennedy supposed to rein him in when they have been promoted to power by a political madman who gave them the authority that no one else would?
The result is that instead of rising to the occasion, we have been stewing morbidly in the juices of defeat, overwhelmed by the supposed slush of this administration. The Hands-Off protests may have been the beginning of something, but we won’t know the truth of it until a month from now and we start seeing name-brand populists take to the stage. How can we possibly defeat an anarchist when he floods the zone with his chaotic orders, far too many to contend with efficiently? Instead, we retreat to humiliated wound-licking, wondering why Kamala has been beaten into silence and all we have left is the likes of Schumer and Jeffries. Good men, both, but their eyes are dead.
What we need right now are stories of valor, winning candidates who say no to barbarism, and defeat Voldemort from the valleys to the mountaintops. I want to feel the way I did this summer, when I fell in love with Doug Emhoff all over again, and gave my soul to Kamala and Tim. Whatever else, I need stories of victory that rouse me from my defeatism and torpor and help me organize my efforts for the hard times ahead. Give me April Fools’ every day of the week.