As I lay me down to sleep last night I thought of posting how dispirited and disengaged I feel, how I imagine 48.2% of my fellows feel. I feel as a victim of the electoral equivalent of the U.S. military's Shock & Awe strategy is intended to feel: dazed, bewildered, hopeless, a stranger in my own land, unable or unwilling to resist further. I thought of writing this as an appeal to President Obama, I could think of noone else, to lead a movement of resistance to shake me and mine off our asses. But then I fell asleep.
I haven't read much about Obama's successor. Deliberately. That's deliberate disengagement. But today I read Charles Blow and he and the organizers of the women's marches are the ones to whom to write such an appeal to spearhead such a movement:
Saturday’s Women’s Marches across the country and around the world answered [Trump] with a thundering roar.
The marches, whose participants vastly outnumbered inauguration attendees, offered a stinging rebuke to the election of a man who threatens women’s rights and boasts of grabbing women’s genitalia.
And it was a message to America that the majority did not support this president or his plans and will not simply tuck tail and cower in the face of the threat. This was an uprising; this was a fighting back. This was a resistance.
Members of Congress, laboring under the delusion that they operate with a mandate and feeling compelled to rubber-stamp Trump’s predilections, should heed well the message those marches sent on Saturday: You are on notice. America is ticked off.
There has been much hand-wringing and navel gazing since the election about how liberalism was blind to a rising and hidden populism, about how identity politics were liberals’ fatal flaw, about how Democrats needed to attract voters who were willing to ignore Trump’s racial, ethnic and religious bigotry, his misogyny, and his xenophobia.
I call bunk on all of that.
I have given quite a few speeches since the election and inevitably some variation of this “reaching out” issue is raised in the form of a question, and my answer is always the same: The Enlightenment must never bow to the Inquisition.
[The marches] were a rebuke of bigotry and a call for equality and inclusion. They demonstrated the awesome power of individual outrage joined to collective action. And it was a message to America that the majority did not support this president or his plans and will not simply tuck tail and cower in the face of the threat. This was an uprising; this was a fighting back. This was a resistance.
...
The women’s marches sent a clear signal: Your comfort will not be built on our constriction. We are America. We are loud, “nasty” and fed up. We are motivated dissidents and we are legion.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/opinion/we-are-dissidents-we-are-legion.html
I haven't read much about Obama's successor. Deliberately. That's deliberate disengagement. But today I read Charles Blow and he and the organizers of the women's marches are the ones to whom to write such an appeal to spearhead such a movement:
Saturday’s Women’s Marches across the country and around the world answered [Trump] with a thundering roar.
The marches, whose participants vastly outnumbered inauguration attendees, offered a stinging rebuke to the election of a man who threatens women’s rights and boasts of grabbing women’s genitalia.
And it was a message to America that the majority did not support this president or his plans and will not simply tuck tail and cower in the face of the threat. This was an uprising; this was a fighting back. This was a resistance.
Members of Congress, laboring under the delusion that they operate with a mandate and feeling compelled to rubber-stamp Trump’s predilections, should heed well the message those marches sent on Saturday: You are on notice. America is ticked off.
There has been much hand-wringing and navel gazing since the election about how liberalism was blind to a rising and hidden populism, about how identity politics were liberals’ fatal flaw, about how Democrats needed to attract voters who were willing to ignore Trump’s racial, ethnic and religious bigotry, his misogyny, and his xenophobia.
I call bunk on all of that.
I have given quite a few speeches since the election and inevitably some variation of this “reaching out” issue is raised in the form of a question, and my answer is always the same: The Enlightenment must never bow to the Inquisition.
[The marches] were a rebuke of bigotry and a call for equality and inclusion. They demonstrated the awesome power of individual outrage joined to collective action. And it was a message to America that the majority did not support this president or his plans and will not simply tuck tail and cower in the face of the threat. This was an uprising; this was a fighting back. This was a resistance.
...
The women’s marches sent a clear signal: Your comfort will not be built on our constriction. We are America. We are loud, “nasty” and fed up. We are motivated dissidents and we are legion.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/opinion/we-are-dissidents-we-are-legion.html
