Let me lead off by saying that I’m with Joe all the way. It’s his campaign and I’m proud to be contributing time and labor and money.
And now, The Rant.
How well I remember that awful November morning in 2016 when we realized what had happened. We all do.
And how vividly I remember someone on my social media feed who posted the word FUCK about 400 times in a row. His anguish and fear were palpable in that moment.
But I also remember that until that day, he'd been savaging Hillary Clinton with all the left-over Berner rhetoric he could muster.
And he wasn't the only one who didn't see a connection between talking shit about a Democrat...and losing to a Republican (and the very worst one, at that).
I saw — we all did — old socialists posting InfoWars nonsense or falling down Seth Rich conspiracy rabbit-holes in order to rationalize their unwillingness to get their fingers dirty by voting for The Democrat, for That Woman.
I saw climate activists who grasped the statistical implications of CO2 levels over centuries...somehow believing that the entire country was going to magically elect Jill Stein (despite their having done no election work for her of any kind). The list goes on and on.
And I see it now.
This is cowardly shit, a set of interlocked attempts to avoid responsibility. The woman who told me in 2016 that she wasn't going to "let some hypothetical Supreme Court justice" stop her from "voting her conscience"...I wonder how she felt when the Dobbs decision came down?
In these times, "voting one's conscience" cannot simply be a ritual washing of hands; it’s a poor sort of conscience that overlooks the long-term ethical consequences of a single action because it felt so good.
It’s very significant that the vast majority of these folk — then and now — were and are operating from positions of significant unearned privilege. Privilege is what lets you ignore the strategic and long-term implications of your vote, your support...in favor of a quick helicopter trip to an imaginary moral high ground.
Black people in America know this far better, far more viscerally, than I. Consider the pathetically short period in our nation's history when Africn-Americans have been able to exercise their franchise, and ask: how many of those votes were for candidates whose records on racial equity were spotty — but who were better than the Other One? The answer: Almost All Of Them.
A major part of America's institutional movement against racism was made possible by generations of African-Americans voting — despite overwhelming institutional opposition and oppression — for Whoever Sucked Less. The same holds true to varying extents for all historically-disenfranchised groups who have improved their safety and security in our society with decades of strategic votes. This is what taking responsibility looks like.
If we truly wish to take responsibility for our world, that means knowing our history and working to mitigate the negative impacts of our own actions and the policies of our country. Being against a bad policy doesn't give you a pass from helping to clean up its consequences.
This is a bucket-brigade moment. If the house is burning and a team of people is passing buckets to put out the fire, you either join them or not. You don't get to stand on the sidelines talking about how the guy who formed the bucket brigade is too tired, or said some things you didn't agree with, or was too much of this or too little of that. You get in the line and pass the goddamned buckets, or you're with the arsonists — because the FIRE doesn't care about the purity of your conscience.
And a difference of opinion with the guy at the head of the bucket brigade is not a valid excuse for standing on the sidelines wringing your hands.
Get in that line and start passing buckets.
We have a society, a country, and a world to save.