Wait, what’s this diary about again?
For decades the far right has been using every tool at their disposal to drag America to the right. Radical concepts have been snuck in through the dank, creepy edges of the wing-nut-o-sphere… then flourish and take center stage in a weird parade towards fascism.
The “Overton Window” of acceptable behavior has appeared to be moving steadily towards a despotic, theocratic, Neo-conservative dystopia.
What may not have been so apparent was that it has been shrinking and closing with its rightward movement.
It’s gotten so that what passes for acceptable behavior in MAGAtowne applies to very few people, even on the far right. When a “deal” where the pResident gets everything he wants in exchange for conceding a few items before the courts force him to… When that deal is too much compromise for the screeching Nationalists he lives to make happy, we have reached the point where the purity tests on the right are self-defeating and suicidal. The Overton Window on the right has turned into a chimney that Nazi Santa has to squeeze down with his bag of racist policies for all the little baby Nazis in their gated communities.
Every attempt to limit voting rights is an admission that their ideas are becoming less acceptable, not more so. They are losing ground in every key voting demographic; yet they continue to pursue goals that are further and further from acceptable behavior. Destroying families. Endangering federal workers’ livelihoods. Sucking up to dictators...
Meanwhile, on the Left:
There has been a ton of hard work, sweat, and tears that have gone into Resist!ing, since way before fighting tRump became a necessity. I would say that I have grown immensely in my understanding of the struggles and value of all our allies on the left. Each one of us is truly unique, powerful, and righteous in our dreams and desires. The lives we lead individually inform and empower us.
We cannot and will not ever fit into the intolerable little pigeonholes the right wishes to lock us in. While their version of the “Overton Window:” the social understanding of what is permissible, acceptable, and desirable as societal paradigms is, I believe, collapsing under its own weight, the Left’s Overton Window has been growing by leaps and bounds.
As the right’s draconian policies become more onerous and debilitating, the Blue Wave has brought some surprising changes. Much better drug policies on marijuana use, both medical and recreational, with attendant beginnings in criminal and penal changes to reflect the new understandings.
That is a change I never thought I’d see.
Big wins for teachers and their unions in some very red states.
The #MeToo movement and the unapologetic changes to many long-standing misogynistic status quos.
Some amazing fighters in the House.
The injection of the 70% top marginal tax rate into the discussion on our federal budget.
Suddenly, there’s a whole boulevard of righteous progressive discourse and gains, and AOC seems to be the canary that unexpectedly sprang to life deep in the inky blackness of the tRump years and started singing (and dancing!) loud enough for the whole country to hear.
Now, none of these positive developments started with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but she has done exactly what needed to be done with the Democratic agenda. She has embraced it in a profoundly meaningful way, and in doing so has used every criticism and attack on it as an amplifier to increase the power and reach of our message. She has done her homework, and is capable of doing the one thing that has always evaded us, she defuses every attack and deftly uses them as an opening to invite people into a better, shared tomorrow.
When white Nationalists tried to move the goalposts off into the hinterlands of their most ignorant bigots, they abandoned the very ideals they claimed to be fighting for. Health. Prosperity. Equality. Freedom.
We have all been waiting for fighters who can galvanize a broader spectrum of the electorate, who know the goals and who can communicate the importance of reaching them. I can’t tell you how many times I waited in desperation for President Obama to acknowledge the nature of those who opposed us and to come out swinging.
Representative Ocasio-Cortez has walked out onto the middle of that empty field, picked up the ball, taken to the internet, and invited everyone to come make and enjoy that future together. It reminds me of the scene in Aliens when Lt. Riley climbs into the work robot to take on her foe in a manner more suited to the challenge at hand. She looked at the way the tables were tilted against her, and looked outside the box for a solution that would get her onto even footing with a foe intent on her destruction.
AOC is already better at social-media platforms than probably anyone else in politics. She is the clearest voice driving the progressive agenda while Speaker Pelosi is running policy and strategy. She walked into the Capitol building, not to measure for drapes to re-style the architecture. She walked in as a woman who could bypass the architecture and put in a window for us all.
The Window she has thrown open is as wide as America, everyone can come in.
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