Re-Emerging

I’ve never been into hot takes, except for the very few times when my experience is directly relevant to dousing some misinformation. I need time to process and think through possibilities. I’m not ready even now to say much.

The re-election of Donald Trump is a terrible thing. At best, we will waste four years when we needed to make progress on human rights, the economy, global warming, arms control, pushing back autocrats…you can add more in the comments if you feel so inclined. More likely, very bad things will happen. Mass deportations seem to be at the top of Trump’s priorities.

We need to come together and plan now. We need a variety of plans, because Trump is capricious and his coalition internally contradictory. Some governors are planning not to give in to Trump’s attempt at mass deportations. This is the kind of thing we need to be doing more broadly.

Something I have tried to avoid reading (and have blocked more than a few doomsayers on Bluesky) is the prediction of what will, for sure, happen, and what we must do in that case. Or that all is lost.

We are in new territory, for which we have little experience. That’s anxiety-provoking, and a way to deal with anxiety is to find a source of certainty. Vanity Fair had an article on astrological predictions that got some circulation on Bluesky this morning. Please don’t do that. BTW, I haven’t been reading much of the comments here because every time I dip into them, they’re predictable.

But hanging on to that certainty, whether it’s doom or astrology or 12 Democrats Who Must Never Work Again, will blind us to the actual situation and make it harder to come up with productive responses.

So I’m hanging loose, as they used to say. I have some thoughts on the election, but not for just now.