It feels like the world I live in (my sphere of influence, my ability to perceive and participate in areas I occupy, etc) gets radically altered every week or two despite how little changes in practical terms. I still work the same job, do the same tasks, entertain myself the same ways, and haven’t had to make many changes to my life as a result of the last two years of stuff. And yet it feels like everything is different. Democracy in the US is being shredded in front of our eyes by a partisan, extremly Republican supreme court, various political bodies that are failing to constrain the attempts to undermine any of the principles that this country once suposedly stood for, medications are flipflopping between being legal and illegal, and all while the ostensible opposition party can’t mount a defense to save anyone’s life, not even their own, such that it is not unreasonable to look out at the current political climate and wonder if it’s too late to fix things. I don’t believe it is, not yet, but it is going to take a lot more radical action from people currently elected than we’ve seen from any of them up to this point, and while that is definitely within the realm of possibility, I’m not sure how likely it is, at all. It would require them, all Democrafts really, to stop backing down without a fight over literally everything and yet they keep capitulating on every front.

Some of them are definitely more guilty of this than the others (since some have not only backed down but actually gone on to support Republican endeavors), but it is still exhausting to watch any of them give up, especially if they’re saying they’re giving up before the fight even begins. Counter-gerrymandering has been the word of the year, since the Republicans have been actively and explicitly trying to gain seats in the house by gerrymandering their states such that typically Democratic seats get chopped up into stronger Republican ones. Which might still backfire on them, given the way that the anti-Trump backlash has been turning historically Republican districts all over, though the Democrats need to step letting that happen uncontested. They need to fight back against the lawsuits getting in their way and really find some scraps of a spine they can lean on literally anywhere. They need to make this a constant issue. They need to figure out some talking points, or even just keep Trump’s stupid, dismissive comments in the public eye since the media refuses to engage with anything he says beyond merely repeating it and then letting it vanish into the aether unless it’s some sensational, horrible thing he’s actively trying to do that they can pretend to be critical of while excitedly looking towards their raitings for a jump in viewership. I am so tired of the people I helped elect doing nothing but letting every fight go before they’re even called into the ring.

I don’t know what’s going to happen if the Democrats continue to take the side of the Republicans via inaction. I wrote not that long ago about how scary the world seems as people begin taking matters into their own hands, and I worry that its just going to excelerate that process. I hope we can see some kind of progress whenever John Fetterman, who keeps siding with The Republicans more and more, drifting further and further right with every vote and statement to the public, gets voted out of office. I hope that a lot of the primary challengers manage to unseat the stodgy, inactive Democrats who refuse to do anything but calcify while stating that they want a “strong Republican party” despite the fact that every Republican is, at this point, complicit in all of the illegal dealings, war crimes, abuses of power, and blatant corruption of the Trump administration. If actual “justice” got served, the kind that the average citizen is forced to endure, I don’t know that many Republicans would be left in office. Which is probably a strong motivating factor to continue to appeal to the Supreme Court’s increasingly partisan rulings so they can toss out all standing case law that shows what the Republicans are doing is wrong and that no one really has any rights except white Republican men who get everyone else’s rights too somehow (to give to guns, of course). Unless something unexpected happens and the Democrats manage to win big this year, elect a lot of fighters, buck their age-based hierarchical system meant to keep the “radicals” down, and actually do their goddamn jobs for once by trying to run this country as representatives of the people they were elected by rather than out of self-interest in maintaining their lifestyles and landing cushy “consulting” gigs from the same companies currently bribing them to legislate certain ways, then I can’t imagine any of this turning out well for anyone.

Because the problems aren’t just going to disappear, even if the Republicans somehow consolidate control. You can’t legislate people out of existence. You can’t oppress queerness out of existence. You can’t force people to endure this level of inequality and misery forever. Eventually, something is going to give and either the people leading this country will be replaced or a whole lot of civilians are going to die every few years until the people leading this country are replaced. And who knows what will come from that. Revolution rarely ends well for even the successful revolutionaries. There’s so much infighting that always blossoms into retaliation and actual fighting when the rebels become the new leaders. It never ends well. The only good that comes from it takes years to build and there’d be a whole lot of misery between now and then. Probably less than if things continue on the way they have, though. Probably. Not definitely. But that’s the option I’d bet on if the betting markets survived the revolution and turned away from external wars and genocide to which path forward would involve the least human misery. Reality is just so fucking stupid right now. I… I can’t stand it.