It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I mean, I know there’s been sporadic posts, but my old frequent posting schedule has gone by the wayside. That’s mainly down to the new job, but some of that is not being sure what to say. I mean, talking about what’s going on in my life seems pretty… well, lacking, when I’m looking at what’s going on in the US and the UK at the moment.
Looking at Ursula Vernon’s post she captures the utter insanity of where we are at the moment. To paraphrase: “bought gas masks for protestors, did some gardening“. It’s terrifying. As I’ve got older I’ve become increasingly aware that I’m not white. It’s something that I was aware of as a kid, that faded into the background through the 1990s, where we actually seemed to be making progress.
And now we’ve arrived in 2016, and the UK has actually voted for a surveillance state, and to attempt to take itself into being some kind of third-world pariah on the edge of Europe, led by a racist and a buffoon. And the US has voted for a racist can of tango, who’s brought with him actual neo-nazis. And we can call them the “alt-right” if you prefer, but either way, they’re horrific.
And I have a list of US people to call, although last week when I tried I got busy-tones and full voicemail boxes. But at the same time we’re booking a rental car and a hotel so we can go and visit my mother. And I’m reading about protestors being treated like they’re in a war-zone but I’ve just come back from seeing friends for thanksgiving, and spending hours in Powell’s looking at books.
Never has my world history felt so close. I feel Mr Ross, my history teacher’s explanations of the rise of fascism in Germany as terrifyingly present. I feel wary and on edge. And I watch as people excuse and say we should wait and see. We don’t need to. We let him show his colours. It’s not what he says that worries me, it’s what he does. Journalists don’t seem to have got that yet. They report his words like they’re meaningful.
But they are just noise. Just pacification. It’s like when my friend read the antibiotic guidelines to a baby who’s mum had disappeared from our ER. He was settled by the soothing noises, the words themselves were immaterial. Trump utters these phrases that soothe and console, but his actions speak to a truth that will tear the US apart.
It will not make America great in any sense of the word. It’ll make him rich, and drive people to poverty, despair and destruction. It’ll rip and lay bare divisions in society. And it leaves me feeling hollow and scared.
