This Is a Test of the Emergency Broadcast System
Well, we're being TESTED for sure, but this is not a drill. This is do or die, and since I'd like to have some goddamned rights, I'm begging you to suck it up and vote blue no matter who.
We interrupt this newsletter that was previously not so much about American politics to beg you to help keep Trump out of the White House.
I prefer not to touch on the most polarizing politics in my newsletters. I like to leave that to experienced pundits and political thinkers.
But recent events have ratcheted up my fear over the possible re-election of a man who has already functionally eradicated so many people’s rights, who wants to take away many more, and as of yesterday has the immunity to run roughshod over everything and everyone. Add to that his assorted felonies, his history of sexual assault, his overt cruelty, and his vow to seek vengeance against so many if given a second term. Oh, and he’s Putin’s puppet.
As a woman and domestic violence survivor; as someone who is ethnically and culturally Jewish; and someone who has many marginalized friends: I feel threatened and alarmed, so I’m desperate to appeal to people’s right minds about this. Otherwise reasonable people seem to have lost theirs, equivocating over whether Biden’s weaknesses justify sitting the election out, or voting for spoiler third party candidates, both of which would only increase Trump’s chances of winning. This is insanity.
Some are saying that for them, it’s about Gaza. Let me get this out of the way: Not one single Gazan would benefit from us letting Trump back into office. I want an end to the war, and I want it now. Given that Trump has already declared he would give fellow authoritarian Bibi Netanyahu a blank check to continue his slaughter, you can bet that if Trump is re-elected, it will only rage on, completely unmitigated. There is a reason wealthy right-wing Zionists like Miriam Adelson are supporting him. Let that disabuse you of any notions of Trump as any kind of kinder, gentler option on that front. It’s bullshit.
There is NO FRONT on which Trump is a kinder, gentler option. Our urgent duty now is to keep him out of office, and do so in a landslide that is so undeniable, his pals in the right wing majority of the Supreme Court have no way to invalidate it. Otherwise, women, people of color, migrants, the LBGTQ community, people with disabilities, and anyone else who is marginalized in any way—anyone who is not a rich, white, Christian man—will have whatever rights remain stripped away.
That means voting for whoever is on the Democratic ticket — whether it’s Biden/Harris or Newsom/Whoeverthefuck, etc. Yeah, the options aren’t great! (I have no idea whether it’s better to stick with Biden or replace him on the ticket at this late date. Either way, it’s a gamble. All I can say is, whoever is the candidate gets my vote.) The Democratic party is a shit-show. But they’re not diabolical like Trump and much of the Republican party, which has become a brainless cult. Hold your nose and vote for the Dems anyway, because otherwise you’ll probably never get to vote again, not in any legitimate way.
The media isn’t helping. They need to stop acting as if Trump is the presumptive winner of November’s election. Every day there are more photos of him pontificating, under headlines assuming he’s going to take office again in January, and it only normalizes the idea. (It also traumatizes those of us who’ve had charismatic abusers in our lives. I see a photo of him, and I freeze in terror.)
Remember in 2016 when so many news outlets predicted a decisive landslide for Hillary Clinton? Oops. And they’re going to ask Biden to step down for the good of the country, but not Trump? I liked this meme that pushed back against The New York Times Editorial Board.
Look, I could barely make it five minutes into last week’s debate. I read about it the next day and watched clips. It suuuuucked. But instead of seeing it as a call to abandon the Democrats, I saw it as a wakeup call to do whatever we have to to keep Trump out of office forever. (To quote Rusty Foster, “Joe Biden in a coma would be a better president than Trump.)
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I see something happening now that I’ve watched several times before, and it’s got to stop: Far left progressives, mostly white men, arguing that there’s no difference between the two presumptive candidates, so it doesn’t matter if the worst man wins. I saw it in 2000, when at 35 I briefly joined the Green party and canvassed for Nader. (Confession: I was lured by the hot dirtbag guys. I came to my senses by November, and voted for Gore.)
The young men leading my local Green Party chapter that year made up some song for us to march to about how Bush and Gore were so much alike, we should call them “Gush” and “Bore.” Well, for one thing, Gore wouldn’t have started a forever war with Iraq like W. did, to avenge his father against Saddam Hussein. For another, Gore wouldn’t have appointed two of the now six right-wing judges on the Supreme Court, Roberts and Alito, who keep making one cruel decision after another. Not to mention that Alito lied about his position on Roe v. Wade, and hid his mission to impose Christian ideology on us. Don’t even get me started on the flags.
I saw it again in 2016, when the same (mostly) dudes insisted Hillary Clinton was a virtually identical candidate to Donald Trump. Sorry, but I’m pretty sure Hillary wasn’t going to appoint three more right wing justices, as Trump did with Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett, the latter two of whom also lied about their positions on Roe v. Wade. Sure, Hillary was a deeply flawed candidate. But she wasn’t gunning for Roe and all the other codified decisions that support bodily autonomy. She wasn’t waging an authoritarian coup.
(I am deeply committed to protecting reproductive rights, especially given that in my 30s I underwent two medically necessary abortions, procedures that in certain states I would be denied today, thanks to Trump’s presidency and his court appointees. In the worst case, the pregnancy was ectopic, meaning the embryo was trapped in one of my fallopian tubes; I likely would have died if I weren’t allowed to have a chemical abortion for it.)
I’m seeing this nonsense again now, where people are saying there’s no fundamental difference between Biden and Trump. Granted, there are more similarities between the Democrats and Republicans than I’m comfortable with. They’re mostly neoliberal corporatists, and hawks. But there are some good, forthright Democrats. And as a party, generally, they are not authoritarians who want to take away our bodily autonomy, and other basic human rights.
Make no mistake, Trump’s candidacy is Part II of an authoritarian coup. Have you read about “Project 2025”? Terrifying! I’m taking what’s at stake very seriously, and I want everyone else to, as well. I mean, I’d like to have some goddamned rights!
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Please, let’s do whatever we have to in order to keep that monster, Trump, away from the White House. Get involved, even if it costs you some clout with the jaded cool kids, whom you might worry will cancel you for it. Honestly, our collective passivity has contributed to our landing here. Let’s learn from that and get to work. I’m going to phone bank with Field Team 6 again. What will you do?
P.S. While I have you, I’m adding this NYMag/Intelligencer essay by Ayelet Waldman—about her father, a founder of one of the kibbutzim attacked on October 7th, and a reality check on “liberal Zionism”—to the list of pieces that are helping me make sense of the war.
(Don’t worry—next week I’ll resume making fun of myself for my workaholism and my wayward career path…)