“With Fear For Our Democracy, I Dissent”

“With fear for our democracy, I dissent” — Justice Sotomayor, today, in a statement that is chilling in its necessity and also vital.

That statement, her statement, keeps doing laps around the inside of my skull. You can read the whole thing here (the bottom for the dissents). But that final statement of hers is a terrible, essential echo.

It feels like the distillation of everything that’s gone on with Trump, since Trump, about Trump — how electing him unleashed something terrible, or perhaps worse, simply mirrored it, multiplied it in that reflective visage.

With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

It feels like the thing you wear on a t-shirt, you put on a protest sign, that you spraypaint on walls, that you ink into your skin, a statement you can both co-opt as a weak signal to virtue and a statement you say as some cop or brownshirt or fascist neighbor shoves you up against the wall and pushes a gun barrel against your chest. It’s both a plaintive cry and a defiant call. Something to make art of, to make poetry of, to make a prayer out of, an apology, a whisper, a song, and of course, above all else, a dissent.

I don’t have any great wisdom here. I’m just talking. I feel the energy of agita and want to type it out. That isn’t always the ideal way forward but sometimes, especially with people like myself, it feels like the only way forward. It’s clear that the shadow cast upon us, one we hoped would soften, would lighten and brighten, is now growing wider and darker. This thing we’ve thought of for so long as bedrock — freedom, democracy, America — isn’t. It never was, to be sure, it was always a little bit of an illusion, but that shared illusion made it sometimes, sometimes, true. And now, I dunno. While it’s good to dispel illusions, sometimes we need them. But, perhaps at least we have clear eyes now and we know what’s happening, what’s coming. We’re going to walk into a Trump presidency if we’re not diligent, if we don’t stand vigil. This isn’t a GO JOE BIDEN post or any shit like that, and it’s certainly not a post about WE CAN VOTE OUR WAY OUT OF THIS but it’s a reminder we’re walking toward a black, bleak, very deep pit, one that might as well be bottomless, and we have to stop and turn around and do whatever it takes to not see Trump re-elected. If we turn him away, it doesn’t fix everything — there’s still a sucking chest wound gulping air and bubbling heartsblood, and it’ll still kill us when the next, smarter version of that guy comes along. But it’ll give us a chance. If we elect him, that chance dies.

We have a vote. It is imperfect and it is weak but together, with the votes of others, it gets stronger, louder, better.

With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

And not just that chance, either. We’re on the edge of a lot of things. Loss of freedom and loss of human rights and the teetering availability of bodily autonomy for women and trans folks, not to mention the boiling tidal wave that is climate change. We get Trump, that wave gets bigger, hotter, faster. It’s not just democracy we might lose there. It’s everything.

With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

Mourn today and tomorrow, figure out what you’re going to do. Not just in a selfish “build that bunker” way, but in a… community building, join hands, adopt-a-politician, call-your-politician, whatever you gotta do way. I’m not smart enough to know what that means, not today, probably not tomorow, but others are, and do, and we need to stay sharp, ears open.

With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

Good luck to all of us. Not just in America. The shadow isn’t just darkening over us. The pall is thick and blanketing most of the world.

With fear for our democracy, I dissent.