I don’t want to watch my neighbors fuck around and find out

Photo by KE ATLAS on Unsplash

Chaos has been unleashed. First Trump sent a memo telling the Office of Management and Budget to halt all disbursement of federal financial assistance. As we’re about to see again and again the line between malice and incompetence can be blurry, and within twelve hours of the memo people across the country, in all 50 states, could not access Medicaid portals. Seventy million people rely on Medicaid for their healthcare.

And that was just the start of the mess. Schools were suddenly worrying about funding. Housing programs, veterans programs, and countless organizations providing vital services to people were forced to scramble. Trump then attempted to partially walk back the order, saying all funds that go directly to individuals would not be disrupted, but his team again seemed unaware that numerous programs, like Meals on Wheels, send funding to organizations, even if individuals are then directly helped.

A federal judge has now temporarily blocked Trump’s entire order through this coming Monday, but the fight continues. And amid the political onslaught real people are getting hurt, confusion still reigns in many quarters, and the future of countless jobs and billions of dollars that provide for millions of people’s basic needs remain in the balance.

There are so many possible reactions to this madness, and so many of them are perfectly reasonable. People freaking out, people lambasting Trump, people calling his actions illegal and a power grab and immoral incompetence and more all make sense. This situation is unprecedented, and we won’t always know how to respond to the madness that appears to be the new normal, for now.

But the one reaction I can’t stomach, the one reaction that makes me sad and sickened is the “this is what you voted for” line. In there we can see a glee that makes me profoundly sad. It’s a gloating and a rubbing salt in the wound that is, at its core, tragic. We’ve seen this in many forms, in many iterations over the last week alone. It’s been people seeing Trump propose the “cleaning out” (read, ethnic cleansing) of Gaza and responding by saying Arab voters in Michigan sure must be glad. Other times, it’s been folks seeing Latinos scared about impending ICE raids, and responding by talking about how many Latinos voted for Trump this time around. Often there’s a “this’ll teach 'em” tone to these comments, but all I can feel when I read them is a deep pain at the thinking and division that got us here.

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So much is wrong with the “rub it in” approach that it’s hard to know where to begin. One aspect that gets me every time is that the people punching down, or sideways at best, tend to think of themselves as the political pragmatists. “I voted for the right person, and I’m upset that you didn’t” could, initially, appear reasonable. But very quickly you have to think, wait, don’t you want these people to vote for your candidate next time? And in that case, why would you be talking shit to them right now instead of trying to recruit them into your party, your project, whatever it is you’re up to?

The answer is unfortunate, and instructive. Some of the rhetoric during elections, so frequently used by high-profile Democrats as to constitute a strategy, has been to berate voters. At times this has been overtly talking down to people, with lines like “get over yourself” being tossed at the undecideds out there. But more broadly the Democrats have gone with the “you need to vote for us to save the country from Trump” for the past nine years rather than building a clear, positive vision. So it turns out, at this point, that there isn’t exactly a project to recruit people to. The elected Democrats are, at times, acquiescing to the GOP on immigration and other issues, and in other moments fumblingly unable to formulate a coherent response.

As Shannon Watts, self-described “normie Dem”, liberal leader on gun control, and respected leader among party supporters said: “Twelve inspectors general fired and there's no sit-in? No filibuster? No direction to voters? And in fact, some of you are actually voting for Trump's agenda?” When long-term, dedicated supporters of the party are at a loss when it comes to how Democrats are resisting Trump, it’s no wonder that plenty of people are scrambling. And in a country where division has been deliberately fostered by the ruling class for centuries, it’s not particularly surprising that some people resort to belittling, scapegoating, and various scrabbling efforts to assign blame.

Jason Hickel recently posted a quote from Ali Kadri that reads, “You can judge the strength of capitalism by looking at how much working people hate each other.” And this is where we find ourselves. Under a capitalist system that might be in its later stages, but which is still seeing record profits and is deliberately strengthening itself against government oversight, the working class, and against international competition. The owning class in the U.S. has engaged in these effort in no small part by capturing the White House with a man immensely friendly to their agenda. If this all sounds a bit like fascism to you, you’d be on to something. In the United States corporate power has always influenced the state to various degrees, and to quite a substantial degree over the last 40 years, among other periods. But we’re witnessing a new fusion of these two power centers that spells danger for us all.

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We’ve reached this point of overt fascism largely because of the power of scapegoating, largely because of years of being conditioned to turn on one another and punch down or punch at our neighbors instead of orienting our fight upwards, at the ruling class. I don’t need to explain that to you, intellectually. You know how migrants and queer folks and Muslims and Black people and more have been targeted, have been made the objects of scorn or anger or violence. But then moments come when the rubber hits the road, and the question becomes do you have a solid foundation of solidarity, a foundation that channels your righteous anger into action against the powerful, or in a fit of weakness do you succumb to lashing out at those nearby, those we’re told are the problem?

I know the answer is clear for a lot of people reading this. You don’t lash out at the vulnerable or punch down while billionaires conspire with the President to screw over countless people. And I’m grateful to know that. I’m grateful to know that muscles of solidarity have been built. For some it’s been decades, for others it’s been a few years. I’m grateful in every case because we need those muscles right now. We need to have an iron spine and a clarity of vision. As Mariame Kaba says, “knowing who to be mad at is praxis.” And when we don’t know who to be mad at we’re liable to fall into fascist logic, rhetoric, and politics.

It might not be you who needs this reminder, but we’ve all seen people falling into this pattern. We’ve all seen people reaching for a brief moment of superiority, of vindication, of catharsis. But when that moment of release comes at the cost of getting a dig in at some group of people who might have (in part) voted for Trump, or who voted Green, or whatever the case may be, you’re putting a destructive pettiness and scapegoating ahead of solidarity. And I know we won’t all be disciplined at all times, but cultivating the habits of solidarity, cultivating the attitude that we leave no one behind and fight fascism and the ruling class together is what will see us through the coming years.

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To be clear, when we see people who are outside our coalition in some way, it’s normal to be frustrated with stakes are as high as they are right now. But as Steward Hall said, “Politics does not reflect majorities, it constructs them.” The coalition we need requires construction. We can bemoan the fact it hasn’t yet been built, that it hasn’t come together as we may have hoped, but the truth remains that we need to do the work of building it. And, at the same time, the truth remains that channeling our anger, turning it into a collective force rather than fractured fragments launched at one another, is part of our work.

I don’t want to watch my neighbors fuck around and find out. I don’t just want a moment of superiority or glee or triumph at ordinary people suffering because they didn’t know better, were manipulated, or even believed the scapegoating they were fed. I know it’s tempting, and the brief sense of power we get from gloating is the easiest thing to reach for not because of some fundamental flaw in human nature, but because the institutions and organizations where real people power was historially located have largely been eroded or demolished. It’s deliberate. And we have to be deliberate and methodical in turn.

We have to build real power rather than reaching for delusions, rather than reaching for the low-hanging fruit that ultimately harms us all. The world we need is a world where our neighbors are working with us in solidarity, and we’ll only get there by extending our solidarity and support and reaching our hands out to them. I know this won’t be possible all the time, or for all of us necessarily, but refraining from further alienating folks is a realistic and necessary goal if we’re really focused on winning over the long haul. Our task is not to push away anyone who might join our coalition, but instead to do the consistent work and organizing that will lead us to real power.

There is a selflessness to this work that often stands in stark contrast to how most of this country operates, which is exactly why it helps move us toward the more egalitarian and just society we need for a livable future. Dunking on our neighbors gets us nowhere, but the daily work of solidarity, the organizing that looks like chopping wood and carrying water, like breaking bread while you build tenant power, and like rolling up our sleeves to unionize your job day in and day out could get us all the world.

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P.S. Some links to jump-start your involvement in the organizing ahead:

Organize or join a union: https://workerorganizing.org/

Organize or join a tenant union: https://atun-rsia.org/resources

A growing national group organizing toward systemic change led by people of color: https://www.dreamdefenders.org/

Keep fighting for a free Palestine: https://palestinianyouthmovement.com/

Link up with DSA: https://www.dsausa.org/get-involved/

Join the national debtors’ union: https://debtcollective.org/join-our-union/

Youth organizing against the war machine: https://wearedissenters.org/

Find a mutual aid group near you: https://www.mutualaidhub.org/

There is work being done in your area, people are organizing in your town, your state, in the arenas you care about. One way or another, reach out to friends and neighbors and join others in building power towards real change.