Step Away From The Firehose, Plus
Musk Watch is here, plus
I love that photo, as should you all.
Step Away From The Firehose
If you don’t have the appropriate protective gear, you’re going to be drenched and unhappy alla the time. You need to stay, like, firehose-adjacent. Watch the sunlight turn the spray into rainbows. Horrible, soul-snatching rainbows.
One of the purposes of Trump’s tsunami of executive orders and rapid-fire cabinet-level appointments is keeping the opposition disoriented and dispirited. This includes the Democratic opposition in Congress, but that’s pretty much par for the course, to the point where “Democrats in disarray” became a punchline after turning into a go-to press explanation for everything.
Now, though, the call is coming from inside the house. And the senate.
“We’re obviously in a bit of disarray,” one Democratic senator told Semafor. “I don’t think people are really completely sure about what lesson is to be learned in this election.”
Yes, it’s only been going on three months. The lesson seems pretty clear: you got clocked by a fascist and he’s doing bad, bad things that you should oppose.
“The Senate’s new power duo is John Fetterman and Katie Britt,” reads another Semafor headline, about Fetterman’s embrace of the GOP senator’s bill stripping undocumented immigrants who have been accused of crimes but not tried or convicted, and in some cases not even charged, of anything resembling due process. He described his support as a “slam dunk” but it’s really a no-brainer in the literal sense. Shithead.
The story morphs into a puff piece about the love Fetterman’s and Britt’s families have for one another. Fetterman, the fun-sized punchbowl turd, imaginatively calls Britt’s former pro-football-player husband “The Big Unit.” It is to gag.
The opposition also includes you and everybody you know and love who isn’t in thrall to the cult, where the purpose of the blitz is to keep people reeling and unable to organize effectively against it in the community or at large. The solution is to pick one thing and organize against that, or support the people organizing against that, whether vocally or contributing whatever material resources you can spare, or both. When you read or hear something that prompts you to think or say “this is fucking outrageous!”, put down the news and slowly back away, and look for somebody who is organizing against it.
I will try to highlight some of those people when I’m able to stop freaking myself out. Among my favorites is Ms. Kelly Hayes, a long-time community and labor organizer who is smart, effective and indomitable.
The brazenness and severity of Trump’s fascist politics, and those of his merry band of oligarchs, will continue in the coming days. It is a circus of horrors performed by brutish clowns, attempting to act out their bigoted, greed-fueled fantasies. They want people of conscience to feel overwhelmed by despair and disorientation, as though all is lost. They want us to surrender in the face of their extremity and furious momentum. If legal organizations manage to beat back some of the administration’s blatantly illegal maneuvers, such as their attempt to end birthright citizenship, they’re hoping you will thank your lucky stars and leave it at that – assuming that an occasional legal victory is the best we can do. It is not.
Hayes has connections with people organizing against ICE in Chicago, and with many other people elsewhere. I recommend subscribing to her newsletter if you can spare the change, and simply reading it if not. She’s a good, level-headed writer and she knows stuff.
Also, Teen Vogue is back and badder than ever. And yes, I’m serious: that is in fact where I ran across Kelly Hayes almost a decade ago. You could do worse; they’re aiming to calm the young people down and get them organized, and are we not all young at heart?
Step away, step away.
Musk Watch is here
I may have mentioned this already somewhere, but Judd Legum, the proprietor of the invaluable Popular Information newsletter, has started another, free one keeping track of the increasingly brazen neo-Nazi’s antics. Each edition of Musk Watch features highlights of his week along with the Musk Index.
So there’s that. Just check in with Judd once a week or so for your Musk fix, and skip the stories you run across in the press.
Music
I have but one music today, new to me, which I like a lot: Xiu Xiu, 13” Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips (“Common Loon” insane official video).
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