Reactions to #ElectionNight
These are the reactions I consider most helpful for my process of mourning and organizing. Most are not my words. I do not stand by every opinion. But I find something helpful in all of them. Click here for my piece on my personal experience, and what more we can do.
“I love America, but ours is a country which let the eugenics movement happen and continue even after World War II. We put Japanese-American citizens in concentration camps. We let slavery happen. You have to understand that for many minority groups, especially Black, Hispanic, and Muslim, things are not okay. Before you tell me I don’t love America, you should know that I own an American flag tank and two red, white, and blue bikinis, expressly bought in moments of pride.”
“First, understand that the opposite of panic is not blithe acceptance of the situation — it’s clear-minded, positive, day-to-day action. Panic makes you do stupid shit or, even worse, curl up into a ball and do nothing. Don’t tell me you have reason to panic. You never have reason to panic. You have reason to act…
Bad things are absolutely going to happen over the next few years. There will be outrages and disasters. That means people will need your help and you do not have the option of sitting it out. Just know that none of this is unprecedented — you’re just seeing it for the first time, many of you too young to have been paying attention pre-Obama. The old guys who wept with joy when Obama took office did it because they knew that getting there had been a long, brutal road, full of pitfalls and harrowing detours around mountains of bullshit. They saw the Civil Rights Movement bloom in the 1960s, only to run smack into the Reagan years. They pressed on and saw the tide turn.
But only because they acted. In each gut-wrenching setback, they saw opportunity.”
“I need to make politics something more than an interest. I need to recognize political involvement as an obligation to people more vulnerable than me.
I spent a lot of the past year-and-a-half explaining why Trump must not be president to people who already agreed, for fun and profit.
I did not phone bank. I did not knock on doors. I did not give up my weekends to advance political causes I cared about.
I am more powerless than I would like to be. But not as powerless as I have made myself.
If you feel the same about yourself on some of these fronts, maybe lets try to keep each other accountable.”
https://www.facebook.com/eric.levitz.3/posts/10101145388768575
“Where is there being analysis done on how the repeal of the voting rights act has affected the election? Anybody know?”
https://www.facebook.com/emily.daly.169/posts/1208427492563069
“I am registered to vote in the state of Virginia but apparently that’s not enough…today I was told at yancyville church that I needed a Virginia state ID in order to vote. (none of my white friends with different state ID’s had this problem). I was instructed to go in to the towns registrar office and get my Virginia state ID there. I was also told that I would be able to vote there. So I went, they took my picture and then told me that I could not vote there and that I had to go back to the church. I finally voted. would this have happened if my physical appearance more Caucasian? I’m a little pissed and I miss New York City very deeply at the moment.”
https://www.facebook.com/sunya.margulies/posts/10209537253166842
“What we’ve learned is that for your average white American, Trump is a sound choice.
Please don’t run for that statement. Let that sink in.
What will you change tomorrow?”
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=340797879617263&id=100010611605857
“Possible acts of love for ourselves and each other in a state of emergency:
-drink water, breathe, sleep, eat, exercise, and make sure others do the same. Now is not the time to self-destruct.
-gather in large groups: general assemblies, faith ceremonies, etc. Gather to feel feelings and find each other. Mourn and organize. Be the solution to the fear and the threat. Learn people’s names. Set weekly meeting times, now, and establish facilitation teams. Ask people to do things, give them a sense of purpose, everyone should be responsible for doing something for the next meeting (talking to a neighbor, bringing a dish, you name it)
-all those people whose doors got knocked on, who got texts, all of the gotv work: KEEP THOSE LISTS. call those people now, check in, have conversations. Turn them out to above assemblies. Organize as you would in a natural disaster, checking on every single person.
-Take a hard look at what’s at stake, together. Map out the services and care we are going to need to provide for each other. Set up systems. Might be a food pantry, reproductive health services, sanctuary for immigrants, community safety escorts for targeted groups like Muslims, etc. Start planning now how to staff those services and meet those needs, get them up and running. Just as you do in a natural disaster scenario.
-Learn to obstruct. That’s going to be our primary strategy. Learn how others have obstructed in the past and choose tactics that work for your people. What kinds of resistance are on offer?
-Build network and movement. It won’t be funded, but it will be everyone. Think general strike. When do we shut shit down? As a group come up with scenarios that trigger everyone being together. What is your community’s emergency? Write those out and get agreements from people to support each other’s emergencies.
We have done this before in this country. When Obama was elected we had a vast network, Organizing for America, that waited patiently to be mobilized. We saw it in Occupy. We saw it in emergency disaster responses like Occupy Sandy but there are many others. If we treat this as a natural disaster, if we see those impacted and we meet the need, if we build our responses to meet concrete material need and through involvement with many volunteers sensing their agency, we can make the worst of this untenable for those who are charged with the operations of fascism. We are the resistance, let’s hold the line, and let’s do it with commonsense love and not nonprofit industrial complex logic that got us here. Let’s build connection, small steps taken as a collective.
I love you and this is going to be OK if we work together.”
https://www.facebook.com/cheyenna.weber/posts/10105549702503499
“More than 60 percent of Americans believe the rich should pay higher taxes. Same for raising the federal minimum wage. And while polling data is limited, evidence strongly suggests that expanding Social Security is a big winner for Democrats. At the very least, tying Trump to his party’s affinity for Social Security cuts couldn’t hurt: More than two-thirds of Republicansdon’t want to see benefits reduced. Similarly, there is little appetite among voters of either party for deregulating the finance industry. And yet, the GOP nominee has committed himself to doing just that.”
