Democrats are NOT "Just As Bad"

[Though this is a stand alone article, it is the spiritual successor (and part 2 of 3) of my last post about how people often say "They won't care" about Trump supporters when confronted with his latest behavior.]

“Dems are just as bad,” they say.

You’re going to hear this a lot more in the next two months.

You’re going to hear it from communists and anarchists and the very very far left (along with the occasional libertarian) because Democrats now have to focus on getting their message and the vote out, and the leftists who said, “Never shall I ever…” are now being ignored and worked around and struggling to stay politically relevant by going full saboteur on social media.

You’re going to hear it because, even though Biden’s current platform is more progressive than Obama’s in 2012, and even though Harris ranks in the top ten of progressive Senators (and usually the top five) no matter what medium is doing the scoring (or the top ten worst NOT-conservatives if it’s being scored from the other side), both have had histories that involve some harm to marginalized communities. And yes, people have legitimate axes to grind.

You’re also going to hear it because Russian psyops and right-wing “false flag” operations don’t just make shit up out of the aether to divide us, but instead gin up our existing fractures. And these bad actors will do ANYTHING to get us not to vote. They will be pushing this narrative through dank meme stashes and eloquent posts that somehow get picked up by left-wing communities and go viral. 

The “Dems are just as bad” may take the form of a sophist bumper sticker “X is a Y!” or a very complicated analogy about good cops vs. bad cops all working for the same corrupt system. Or a point by a prominent intellectual pointing out that both parties are contrite to business interests making their differences illusory in some contexts. But regardless of what form it takes, you WILL hear it. 

And no matter who is saying it, they are wrong. 

I don’t want to sound unkind. I don’t want to shit on the opinion of those who I would most accurately describe as having a different philosophical pragmatism about getting that which we both want. I certainly am not being prescriptive about how folks should vote. 

But they are objectively wrong.

It's true that our two parties share harmful assumptions, are all right of a global center, villainize any legitimately left views like redistribution of wealth, and have some real shitty overlap on things like colonialism and capitalism. The nature of our winner-take-all democracy requires an enormous umbrella to be able to counter the slavery-protecting rules of the Electoral College, and the fact that a Wyoming vote counts more than three times as much a California vote. 

Twice in 16 years, a Republican who lost the popular vote has become president. (It’s only happened five times ever since we started recording the popular vote, but twice in the five most recent elections.) It means that instead of an actually progressive party that can lean left, Democrats need to project the image of a moderate party that can (hopefully) build a big enough coalition to counter the Electoral College––along with gerrymandering, voter ID laws, voter purges, poll closures (almost exclusively instigated by Republicans and almost always disenfranchising marginalized  demographics [which happen to lean left]). And now we can add foreign interference, screwing with the Post Office because it’ll suppress mail-in ballots, and voter intimidation if Trump has his way. That “big umbrella” that is required to counter all this cheating means a lot of moderates on the national stage and a lot of marginalized communities getting pushed under the bus to go for the broader appeal. And that means a LOT of folks have absolutely legitimate grievances against Democrats.


That doesn’t make the Dems the “same” as Republicans.  It just doesn’t.

To characterize the legislation and action Dems in the House have been trying to pass for 18 months (including an impeachment, FAR greater Covid stimulus, the Paycheck Fairness Act, the Climate Action Now Act, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act, the Consumers First Act,  and a host of democratic reforms), all of which either get voted down by the Senate (or are never brought to a vote by Mitch McConnell)……

**takes a deep breath**

To look at all of that, and conclude that Dems “aren't doing anything," or that both sides are “just the same” is the kind of reductive hasty generalization that is broad-brushstrokes enough for podium pounding at the communist’s club or the local anarchist’s meet-and-greet, but is outrageously inappropriate for a sophisticated, accurate, or precise read of our current political climate since the horrifying turn taken in 2016. We went from “not left wing enough for leftists” to the ADL jumping up and down and warning us that that the progression of Trump’s America was ALL TOO FAMILIAR. That is not “just the same.” The casual disregard for lives, health, prosperity (of anyone other than Wall Street), and the Grand-Canyon-sized chasm between parties in order to make a claim like “they’re all alike” has reached the point of its own deliberately obtuse brand of fanaticism. And I don’t say this to be invalidating to folks on the far left. (I am one.) I don’t say it because I don’t understand that capitalism as we know it is unsustainable. (I do.) I don’t say it without fully understanding that except for maybe “The Squad,” Dems too support oppressive institutions and share harmful assumptions. (They surely do.) What I’m pointing out is that folks who think this makes them “the same” completely invalidate some very real differences with very real consequences to very real lives. This isn’t just a matter of cosmetic differences––blues and reds and donkeys and elephants––and it's not just an intellectual exercise either, but in fact their differences are massive, affect real people’s real lives, real people’s prosperity, real people’s health and real people’s safety and security.


There are people with their own complicated reasons not to vote and not to vote for Biden, and I grudgingly respect many of them that don't smack of middle-class-white-cis-person-(who-doesn’t-do-much-activism-anyway)-wants-a-winged-unicorn-pony-in-one-election-cycle-or-will-post-guillotine-memes-instead-of-doing-harm-reduction. Also, lord knows there's salient criticism about both Biden and Harris. (Although, with that said and Triple Legit™ stamped, some of the talking points, I should mention, sure do sound an awful lot like they’re right out of that particularly rabid pro-Sanders camp in the primaries [who shall remain unnamed], and have a strange lack of downward drilling and nuance for ideas coming from folks who claim to actually care about both those things.) There will always be salient criticism about anyone with an actual political…you know….CAREER. Something that happened on their watch. Something that got added to a bill that had to be passed. Something that was politically popular at the time and now we have a greater understanding of its problems. And Biden in particular is a centrist Dem—a concession to that big umbrella, a particularly rabid right wing series of attacks that anyone left of Joe Manchin, and the fact that we can’t govern if we don’t win––and someone with a long career of calls that truly harmed people. I don't know what the political calculus of each decision was. I don't know what he would have risked to do otherwise. But I do know he has hurt people, and some of them have every valid and legitimate reason to be unable to participate in handing him even more power.

However, to say that the parties, their platforms, their offerings for POTUS, their SCOTUS nominees, their LOWER court nominees, their border policies, their international diplomacy, their tax policies, their social safety net concerns, their civil rights records, their policy initiatives, or even their Covid-19 responses are "just the same”….Well, it tells me only that the person saying so sees no difference in some of my friends’ deaths from from Covid-19 that a proper response could have prevented; it tells me that the laws passed (always by the right) against body autonomy or trans rights are meaningless to them; it tells me that a politicized Covid response that isn't "Fuck you. This mask is mildly uncomfortable and I want to go to Applebee’s again" isn't appreciably different so why bother; it tells me that MY being alive and healthy when the A.C.A. saved my life (or either dead or bankrupt and with a chronic medical condition) doesn't matter to them; it tells me that the death of one of my ex-partners to cancer rather than the A.C.A. saving her life would be "just the same"; it tells me that the party trying to raise the minimum wage and the party that blocks it at every turn are the same in their eyes; it tells me they don't care about the tens of thousands of regulations that were put into place over decades to protect people from predators, and that are now being gutted, are pretty much non-issues as far as they’re concerned; it tells me they have little or no sympathy for folks who feel like they have to flee the country because they and their children are no longer even base-level safe, from mass deportations, from the threat of nuclear exchange over Tweets, from a leader praising autocratic despots and alienating democracies, from stochastic terrorism, hate crimes, and ginned up alt-right mobs; it tells me that a border response where cruelty is literally spelled out in memos as The Point™ doesn't strike them as a moral imperative enough to even acknowledge that a difference exists (never mind to act upon it); it tells me that a six-figure death toll that every epidemiologist and most other countries responses told us didn’t have to happen is not a meaningful reason to delineate; it tells me that the difference between passing laws that disenfranchise marginalized populations and those who fight tooth and nail against such laws is considered a trivial difference; it tells me that the difference between not moving fast enough and STILL declaring something a hoax with regard to the greatest humanitarian threat of our age does not carry that much weight.

Also this might be a bitter pill, but ALL of that is exactly what a Russian psyop or “alt-right" false flag operation would WANT them to say. It is exactly the “stay home” message being crafted by everyone who finds liberal politics anathema. 

I do not say this to shit on those lefter than me, though lord knows they’d seem like they’d rather come full force after the labor class that they see as too centrist than actually take on the right or the monied class. And lord ALSO knows that the idea that they are going to WIN OVER that labor class by telling them all their pragmatic concerns in the US political landscape are meaningless might need to at least take a tour of the swing states and talk to some people who don’t already agree with them.

I say this because I have skin in this game. Trans family members who have been openly, and with legislative violence, ATTACKED by this administration. Dear loved ones who I will lose to basically an evacuation for the sake of their children. Friends who haven't seen their family (who last communicated from the southern border) in months. Family who can't afford to skip over five states for an abortion. And the memory of how I and someone I love are literally alive today because of the "just the same" Dems forcing through some vestige of a health care plan against every measure of resistance….from the GOP.

“Both the same” is a useful metonymy when everyone in the room has a big-picture lens on anti-capitalism or anti-colonialism, or maybe passingly understood when Noam Chomsky is being quoted out of context in an 11-year-old interview (that he has since repeatedly clarified). It's much less useful when some 3edgy5me white male libertarian who thinks they have the world figured out because 95% of the differences in the parties never affect them decides to whip up some dank memes. But it's positively disastrous when brought into a robust discussion of current mainstream U.S. politics, harm reduction, or how dangerous ceding power is in a (regrettably) two-party country, it reeks of breathtaking solipsism that blows off six-figure body counts, a southern border policy designed to terrify people as a deterrent, and rising fascism as something too minor to “get distracted by” on the way to “more important things.” 

They are not “just the same.” They demonstrably, objectively, are NOT.

But They Won't Care

“BUT his followers won't care!” goes the shout every time we point out some new outrage. Whether it’s a brazen assault on free and fair democratic elections or some latest breathtaking display of naked racism. Even when the reason they followed him (his business acumen) proves to be based on lies.

They won’t care.

I know they won't. They don't.  He's hitting the notes they want him to hit, and they have demonstrated time and time again that they are more morally bankrupt than one of Trump's businesses, and that nothing––not values, not pluralism, not governance, not reputation, not even facts––matters to them more than winning and hurting "the right people." 

They shouted, “fuck your feelings.” And just in case we didn’t understand just exactly what they meant, the minute they were in power, they showed us.

And anyone who might stand against Trump abandoned integrity to make a Faustian deal. They deliberately look away and pretend they can't see what's happening while the GOP stacks the courts, shoves children in concentration camps, milks the wildest and most hurtful conspiracies for cheap political points, rams through tax cuts for the rich, and sabotages healthcare. They are, pragmatically speaking, indistinguishable from a cult. NOTHING will get through to them until they are separated from the cult for a time. 

Yes, I totally understand that he has a mid-70s approval rating in the Republican Party (far from the mid-90s he chronically lies about on Twitter). I understand that they're all having a laugh at how apoplectic he makes the "snowflakes" on the left. Considering that pissing us off and fucking our feelings and triggering us was the closest thing they actually had to a unifying, cohesive ideology in 2016, that's not super surprising. 

I also understand that he overtly manifested the racism, bigotry, and hatred of the poor–– most of which they barely, if ever, concealed––into an avatar who came out and said all the hateful shit they got tired of having to be "so PC" and tiptoe around. It is obvious that––not DESPITE his mob connections, undisclosed finances, and financial fetters to foreign powers but BECAUSE of them––he symbolizes to them that it is better to be absolutely anything (even a tax evading conman obviously wading in criminal corruption) than to not be rich.

We don't share these stories for "them." They have cast themselves as the victims in their own persecuted narrative and think Obamacare is tantamount to concentration camps (while they ignore ACTUAL concentration camps). We don't think we're finally going to hit the proof or the bridge-too-far moral depravity that makes them turn around and say, "Oh holy shit. What have we done?" Most simply do not demonstrate that kind of self-reflection. 

Nothing could be more emblematic of the ongoing and escalating erosion of democracy––first through voter suppression and gerrymandering but now onward and upward to all-but-proven collusion between Russia and his entire staff, collusion with Ukraine that basically even the GOP had to admit totally happened (but just didn’t remove him from office because that would be letting the Democrats win), and now an open and shockingly admitted attack on the USPS to fuck up mail-in ballots…**deep breath**

Okay, you probably forgot where that sentence started since there are so many examples of attacking democracy to list. Let me recap.

Nothing could be more emblematic of the ongoing and escalating erosion of democracy than the GOP's cheerful willingness to ignore–not just ignore even, but to MOCK–a giant and growing body of evidence that Trump will absolutely cheat to win an election. Nothing could be more indicative of their hypocrisy than to spend a decade lauding themselves as fiscally responsible and howling about every penny out of a balanced budget, only to turn around and drop 1.5 trillion on tax breaks for corporations and millionaires in their tax code followed by $500 billion in corporate stimulus for the pandemic––regarding which, Trump assured everyone he would be disregarding any attempt at congressional oversight. Even their patriotism falls apart like wood eaten out by termites. It's little more than a shallow jingoistic facade, a flag draped over discarded veterans, and the seething contempt for the institutions and values (be it law enforcement or democratic pluralism) that they claim to love when the anthem is playing, but turn on like an abusive spouse the minute they're stopped from doing just exactly what they want.

So no, I don't particularly expect they will witness some bit of proof or consequence of their policies and suddenly see reason. They still strongly believe the emperor is wearing full regalia. 

But they're not who I'm talking to. They're not who YOU should be talking to either. They have relinquished their right to reasoned engagement. They have abandoned integrity. They have lost all sense of a moral compass. What they defend is indefensible, even if they don’t claim to be capital-B believers themselves.

They are unreachable. No bridge would ever be sufficient. At least no bridge constructed with so much as a shred of compassion for those on the other side who they’ve taken a twisted delight in hurting and killing and laughing at (calling them “identity politics or social justice warriors”) for having the temerity to point out they are part of a group being treated with state sponsored, systemic, systematic violence. 

No, they’re not who I’m talking to. They are lost and if they're ever coming back, it will be up to factors I cannot control. 

1- Who I am talking to is the  30% of people who COULD vote but are apathetic, and who every poll in the fucking world says lean left. (But who just kind of hate the DNC so much that they sit out civic engagement.) Add a few thousand votes in the right state, and that’s the ball game. [In 2016, the Michigan vote was so close that TWO votes per precinct would have flipped the state. That’s two. One….two. You don’t even have to take off BOTH your gloves to count that high.]

I’m talking to the anti-political machine-rager who might realize that SCOTUS appointments really will have a direct impact on people's lives and rights, expanding them for “religious convictions” and curtailing them for anyone who isn’t a cis, het, white man. I’m talking to those who are (justifiably) incensed that their vote isn't going to fix a system that was built with bigotry baked in, and I’m talking to those who might be convinced that elections still have OTHER consequences––ones that matter. I am talking to folks who don’t realize that unless the revolution is scheduled for the first Tuesday in November, those of us who haven't (yet) been disenfranchised can at least help choose between “politicians who might move the timbre of discourse to the left and make it easier to be a local chapter of a grassroots socialism movement” and “literally fascism that will crack our heads and make survival take most of our time and energy.” I’m talking to everyone who maybe doesn’t realize that even though civic engagement doesn’t always make things better, apathy, always, always, ALWAYS makes things worse. And I’m talking to people to remind them of other avenues to political power and action than MERELY voting––because voting is literally the least we can do.

2- Who I’m talking to is the few of them who aren’t a monolith. Elections are won and lost in swing states sometimes by 1 or 2 points or even less. Peel off one or two out of a HUNDRED from his approval ratings––convince them that maybe there are a few things worse than big scary Democrats running the show for four years––and you don’t need to reach this monolithic “THEY.” 

2.5- Who I am talking to is politicians (especially Senators) of “purple” constituencies who May realize that they are committing political suicide to support him through yet another ridiculous scandal.

3- Who I’m talking to is the people who haven’t realized yet that our silence is choice. Any sort of democratic non-blood-in-the-streets revolution that REALLY restructures our society isn't going to happen because we threw up our hands in the face of a tough election and said, "Whatever...THEY aren't listening." 

Because of course they aren’t.

We speak truth to power. That’s “them.” They are power. They don’t have to listen and they don’t have to care, but it’s still vital that we speak. We don’t have to be persuading them successfully to not let them us silence us (or more accurately, to silence ourselves and each other). We don’t even have to be talking to “them” to be strengthening and fortifying each other, because this is like a millstone, and it would grind us all to powder if not for each other.

4- Perhaps most importantly, I’m talking to us. I’m not even talking to “them.” I’m talking to anyone else who’s been a frog in the pot for too long. We’re talking to each other. We hold each other up and ground each other and remind each OTHER of the outrageousness we’ve been exposed to for four years. We remind each other, so that we don't grow desensitized to suffering. So that we don’t forget that today’s news cycle is built on a hundred other scandals and outrages before it that we are so tired of fighting but that all happened. So that we don’t succumb to the gaslighting that he did nothing wrong, and if he did then we deserved it. We do it to hold ourselves strong so that we don’t give up. Because "what's the point?” is what they want us to say. They want us to give up and let them monkey-throw feces all over every value we have without making such a fuss. 

Who I’m talking to is everyone who needs to be reminded that THIS IS NOT NORMAL. And that we CAN do something about it.

Ephemeral Affections

So I'm trying something a little different here. 

I'm writing two posts about the same thing. Not a two-part post (I do those all the time), but rather a two facet analysis of the same event. One is this one here: a personal, "navel gazing" post about a difficult situation and how I'm dealing with it. The other part I will put on Writing About Writing: a breakdown of the same event but from a different perspective having to do with my proximity to my writing career and a place at the outer edge of fame that is beginning to become more and more familiar.

[In case you're just tuning in, I'm not monogamous. That's going to help contextualize some things that might otherwise be confusing about this story.]

A few years back, I had a terrible break up. And while I've had deep and incredibly meaningful relationships since then, I spent quite a long time carefully avoiding anything too serious. Honestly, I spent some time in therapy wondering if I was broken because all my relationships involved folks who were married, were half a continent away, or both. But after a while I processed through enough of my shit and got over the hurt and learned to be with myself. And I was ready to date again.

Let me rephrase that. I was ready to have a relationship again, and I really didn't want to date. I love going on dates with people I care about, but the interview process is phenomenally uncomfortable and I get awkward. Plus....there's that horrible initial phase you have to go through where it's like you're the clay pigeon in skeet shooting. With a lot of people, they say "Pull," you put yourself out there, and as soon as they get a good look at you, they shoot you down. It's not super great for the self-esteem. And when you're coded guy in our society, you're a lot more likely to be the clay pigeon.

Buuuuuuut that's life, right? It takes a special type to be able to announce their availability to the world and passively be inundated with a stack of resumes. So I signed up for OKCupid and took my lumps. I went on a couple of disastrous dates, chatted with several high matches who stopped replying without a word. I went through the motions. 

Then Shelter-In-Place started. Technically, that account is still active. And technically, I'm still open to the possibility of something falling in my lap (so to speak), but one thing kind of tangential to this story is that I decided to put all this effort and rejection and emotional energy on the shelf for a year. If no one has shown up at my door and said, "I am for you, Chris Brecheen" by next May, I'll get back out there, but for now I've decided to funnel my energy into other parts of my life. The timing sucks, since I really WAS starting to get lonely on Friday nights and feeling ready for something more serious. And now I'm Sh.I.P.ing alone when I much would have preferred to be stuck in here with someone wonderful and kissable, but they don't let me schedule the pandemics so.....

Anyway, for various reasons (mostly having to do with maintaining a high-profile public persona), I still get a lot of attention online even though I'm not trying to make a connection. And while I try to get to KNOW people first so that I'm not exploiting a power differential, I can still be kind of a "How YOU doin?'" target when people are feeling a certain way. (I also don't discourage people from flirting shamelessly with me because who knows what might happen.)

The problem is, this sort of attention is often kind of ephemeral. And my heart has been getting its ass kicked. I get soft-ghosted a lot––that's when the person doesn't block or unfriend you or anything and might even reply if you say hi, but they are clearly NO LONGER INTO YOU. The daily chats and steamy selfies are over. I don't like to assign motive, but people flirt shamelessly with a kinda, sorta semi-famous writer for a lot of reasons. I've had folks who slid into my inbox when they were lonely and then "soft-ghosted" when they got asked out by someone in their area code. I've had people tell me they were non-monogamous and then hubby found the chat open one day and maybe not so much. ("Oops.") One time I was the "symptom" of a broken marriage. I'm glad she and her husband fixed their shit and have a better relationship now, but the fact that it was the trip we were scheduling to see each other, after MONTHS of chatting, that led him to realize there was a problem.....that she was lying (to BOTH of us) and planning on cheating....well it sort of sucked on my end. I've had people establish long-distance relationships with me when they were lonely and needed a self-esteem boost who just stopped replying when they found someone local...who happened to be kind of the jealous type. I've had people come at me at WARP NINE with "I want YOU!" energy, and everything was going absolutely great, then stop one day without the slightest warning or explanation. 

Sometimes I find out later what happened. Usually though, I'm just left to wonder and feel a little bit like the clay pigeon. This has been my reality for a few years now. 

Everyone gets their heart Riverdanced on, especially during that initial bullshit period of dating. That's just the way the cliché crumbles. But sometimes having an online life and a high-profile public persona can put the ol' blood pumper out there for a little extra stomping. Add in the OKCupid stuff, and....yikes, it sure is tough. I didn't want to get jaded and start treating genuine people in shitty ways. Particularly if the only thing they could really be accused of is a well intended dabble really only flawed by emotions that hadn't been fully unpacked. (I mean I'm actually the weird one for doing hours of introspection and writing out my feelings to process.) Still....it fucking HURTS, and I didn't want to keep opening myself up to be hurt over and over.

But I recently WAS able to use my fabulous set of hard-earned therapy tools to craft a solution. It was kind of cool because that's the goal, right? You don't just want to work out solutions to the problems you have. You want to be able to solve new ones as they come up with the same set of guidelines. (Like taking care of your heart.) I mean it's not exactly free and accessible here in the US, so it's nice to have something to show for the four years and twenty grand. 

So I thought about ways to engage people who were doing the WARP NINE approach in ways that took my own feelings into account but didn't shut down those feelings either. To enjoy the attention RIGHT NOW without expectation or presumption. To enjoy the exchange without putting up walls and hiding myself away, but also without exposing myself to the hurt of yet another ephemeral pass. To just be fully present in that moment without cynicism or naivety. Well....maybe a LITTLE bit of cynicism because you kind of can't take folks completely at their word––not that they're lying, per se, but you have to sort of keep a heavy dose of "they meant it at the time," on standby.

And it worked! Someone slid into my PMs, dropped all number of salacious ideas (and pictures), and broke the just-flirting barrier at Mach 3. We even started talking tentative scheduling for some possible future rendezvous. I had fun. I enjoyed the moment. I told myself not to get carried away. I took it for what it was and not a particle more. I enjoyed the shit out of it and never considered for a moment that it was going anywhere. Three days later a nurse hit on her in meatspace and within a week I was getting the call: "It just felt so right. I have to see where this is going."

Fortunately, I was okay. It didn't feel great. I wouldn't want to do it three times a week. But it didn't hurt the way it did when I put all my weight down on the soon-to-be-pulled-out rug. I didn't wonder what was wrong with me or fling myself into a pillow regretting that I ever opened my heart to love. It just became a nice moment––a beat that was as over as soon as it began.

There's a metaphor for life here somewhere.

[I think writers in the public eye, or really any artist or entertainer who has a public profile, has a particular dimension of this to navigate. I'll write about that in my other blog.]

Fascism: You're Soaking In It

If you've missed the headlines over the last week, Trump is sending his federal enforcers, who answer only to him, to cities run by––in his own words––"liberal Democrats." (Which is any Democrat, in case you've been on vacation for the last four years.) He's so locked into his narcissistic "everyone's against me" thinking that he isn't even attempting to stick to the ostensible bullshit about "law and order" (which, just so I'm mountain-lake clear would be laughable if it weren't so terrifying, given that the best "defense" the lock-armed GOP was capable of mounting during his impeachment was, "Sure he broke the law, but that doesn't mean we should remove him from office.") I mean he tries, but he keeps screwing up and blurting out the quiet part too.  

He can dress this shit up like a dog in a little tuxedo, but when you burn away the euphemism and rationalization in an anti-bullshit crucible, what you get is that the President of the United States is mobilizing his military forces, answerable only to him, and invading cities of his political opponents, kidnapping their citizens without charging them or reading them Miranda rights or even identifying themselves. This to attempt to intimidate the shit out of them essentially because they were part of (or somewhat near) a protest IN WHICH PROPERTY DAMAGE OCCURRED, and using an ever more violent and deadly tier of crowd suppression weaponry in an attempt to curtail the constitutionally mandated right of free assembly. 

That's pretty much what you see on your TV from some other country when you shake your head and say "Damn shame about [XXXXXXX]. Poor bastards. Shoulda gotten themselves some sweet, sweet democracy."

You know how in some RPG video games you get a prompt before you do something massively unwise? 

"Are you sure you want to doom the galaxy to destruction?"

"You will not be able to return to The Capital Wasteland for some time. Are you sure you wish to proceed?"

"Killing this person will end your quest and destroy the threads of destiny. Are you sure?"

You're not going to get that when it comes to fascism. (And just in case it doesn't go without saying, we can't restart from an old save point either.) No prompt will come up saying. "This is your last free and (kind of) fair election. Are you sure you want to play purity politics?" or "If Trump remains unopposed, you will lose abortion, free assembly (except for neo-Nazis), BLM protesters will be rounded up, southern border camps will become a final solution, and there will be a seven-figure death toll due to Covid-19. Are you sure you want to ignore this latest symptom of encroaching fascism?"

You'll never get that. You just won't.

Everyone thinks they are going to know when they see that clear and unambiguous moment when the nuanced politician's eye twitches and they announce the concentration camps (**checks notes** Oh wait, we already have concentration camps). Everyone thinks THEN they will stand up and do something genuinely patriotic about it. Like it's an action movie. ("Time to get my strangely NOT-anachronistic bow and arrow, and end this.") Actually, it's usually historians looking a decade or more in the rear view who come to some absolutely un-unanimous consensus about the tipping point moment. 

Do they LOOK like they're here to DEescalate the fighting?

But fascism isn’t a toggle switch. It’s more like a slider. The US has had "more fascist" moments in its history––like imprisoning protestors of WWI for years without commuting their sentences after the war. And arguably, unless one dismisses the lived experiences of marginalized communities (which most do), the U.S. has always had one foot in the clinical definition of fascism (beyond just the "bad guys" in a WWII movie). Certainly it's been on the rise since September 11th, 2001, and has had a marked upswing since the the current leader of the Republican Party took the highest office. 

But we won't ever get a prompt that we've hit the point of no return. For us, in real time, it'll just get worse and worse and there will ALWAYS be some justification for it and some scapegoat group like "liberal Democrats" who make one more and one more and one more step acceptable in the mind of those desperate to rationalize their own apathy.

A Year Without Love ("What Would it Feel Like.....?")

Many of my personality traits come through in their own distinctive voices. The voice of caution is my mother's. Patrick Warburton encourages me to go for it. Chris Hemsworth's voice tells me I'm still worthy. Mr. Rogers reminds me to be kind. 

I also often hear therapy things in therapy language in my therapist's voice. She used to hip check my bullshit with "What would it feel like if...."

What would it feel like if you let yourself have a day off?

What would it feel like if you didn't accept that behavior?

What would it feel like if you just let them walk away?

It was....a theme. So even though I wrapped up my last session nearly a year ago with her looking at me and telling me that she thought I was going to be okay and I had her number if I ever wasn't, I still think of things like my boundaries or asking for what I need in a very "What would it feel like...." kind of way. In fact, I think she might have said, "What would it feel like if this were our last session unless you have a specific need in the future?"

Anyway, I was driving home the other day, thinking about how hard any semblance of dating is during Covid-19, how lonely I’ve been living alone with only really my nanny clients for company, and how long it seems Shelter in Place will remain a factor in our lives. And then, I heard her voice...clear as if she was sitting shotgun.

"What would it feel like if you just planned for a year without a primary partner?"

Now...I should pause here. I have a very active imagination, and I can **practically** hear a lot of things. Voices. Sound effects. Morgan Freeman narrating my life with just a twinge of disappointment at my every choice. But except for a few phantom strains of music when it's very VERY quiet, I don't often break out the full-fledged auditory hallucinations. And I've been having just a weird enough couple of months because of isolation to worry about this. So I spent a few minutes on the phone getting grilled about mania and blood clots by my doctor so I could be extra peace of mindy. (Probably no big if I don’t hear it three times a day, I have a full conversation with it, or it doesn’t suggest violence––if you were wondering.)

But in the moment, I just started answering. Like, literally talking to myself in the car. THAT part is pretty normal for me…when I’m not acting out entire scenes from my stories in the car. 

With Oscar performances.

But anyway, I answered: ”Well, I'd probably get more writing done. I would be free of some distractions with figuring out what the hell is going on in my spiritual life. I'd have a little more bandwidth for job two. Gaming. Working out."

"But mostly," I told 'her,' "I think it would just kind of be this emotional expectation lifted. Like, I could just fucking concentrate on other stuff. Like it would actually bother me less to be alone if I were more actively engaging an idea that that's just not a thing. I'd have this year where I'm just like, that's not what I'm doing with my life right now. Wouldn't hiss at it if it showed up, but just put that energy somewhere else. It would be nice just not to feel so…disappointed all the time.” 

And suddenly that felt SO comfortable. That was...IT. That was the answer. In a flash and a moment, I was excited about my next year (“Oh the places I will go!”), and just taking the time to put energy somewhere else. Just letting all the pressure and expectation float away. Put all that crap on pause. Maybe next year I'll worry about noodling my OK Cupid profile, if I’m putting enough effort into flirting, or spending time  facing a mirror and thinking about my desirability quotient. For now I just have other shit to do, and I'm going to do it, and unless someone shows up at the front door saying, "I am for you, Chris Brecheen" (hopefully holding a pizza), I'm just not going to worry about it.

So thanks, my therapist. You're still helping me out. Even if it’s a little spooky.

Tens of Thousands of Teachers are Going to Die

Usually I point here with my Facebook, but today I did my writing on Facebook, and I'm going to point there from HERE. 

Full link: https://www.facebook.com/chris.brecharge/posts/3132331286787432

It's a public post, so you should be able to see it even if you don't have a FB account. Like I say there, blogging just feels a little more "official" and even though I think that writing is important, I was gazing at my navel even more than usual. 

Honestly, I hope I'm way off. 

At Least a Million? (Covid predictions.)

CN: Sort of frank Covid death toll talk. Not trying to be your doom-scroll itch-scratch of the day; I just think we have hard truths to face in this country.  

I've predicted that, when all is said and done, we'll be near a million US deaths from Covid-19 a couple of times, and people think I've lost the plot. They think a quarter mil is on the high end. And to be honest, they're probably right. I don't have a very high opinion of mainstream US culture or its ability to handle this crisis. 

But frankly, I also don't have a model or a forecast I'm using. I don't believe this thing is far more dangerous than the CDC claims or some conspiracy theory or think it is secretly airborne or anything. I just watch our CURRENT fundamentally horrible reaction, and I think we are a perfect storm of incompetence and cultural vulnerability. When cases jack up, deaths jack up (there's no stopping that statistical reality yet), and cases are about to jack WAY, WAY up.

There are 330 million people in the United States. Even Covid's low, beat-the-curve, not-overwhelming-the-ICU's (and the low end of the current guestimate) numbers mean that the cold mathematics are that only about 1/5 of the country falling ill would come out to about a million dead.

1- We haven't even begun to see case spikes from all the reopenings. And by the time anyone says, "Holy shit, reclose it! RECLOSE IT!!!" they will be dealing with two weeks of exponential growth before their curves flatten. Those kind of numbers will grow with dizzying speed.

2- We have the numbers we do BECAUSE of the social distancing and the Shelter in Place that we've managed. And those numbers are.......(wait for it).......the worst in the industrialized world. 4.4% of the population and about 30% of the deaths. That's us on our BEST behavior. And we're about to relax. And conservatives have taken to actively "misbehaving."

3- The federal government's response to insufficient PPE has been criminally derelict. Most places STILL don't have the PPE, beds, ventilators to handle a spike in cases (like the one we're likely to see from reopening), which means you'll see the outcomes of an overwhelmed healthcare system––when that mortality rate jumps.

4a- We have a significant number of people who refuse to take even basic precautions because "fuck the libs" (and fuck academia and science and the media), and no one's going to tell them what to do. When they get it, they will spread it a lot. Not because the info wasn't out there, but because the right-wing leadership found it politically expedient (in the light of facts having such a liberal bias) to undermine any institution that would propagate good data.

4b- It is super hard to watch HALF of a society NOT make a sacrifice you're making for the good of.....them. (Like we can do that shit for our kids, and maybe close family.) Not that there won't be some people who keep social distancing for various reasons, but you're going to see a lot of people (especially if they're in places that aren't doing it at all) wondering what the point is if no one else is doing it.

5- Our governing administration has said openly and on the record that testing just makes the numbers look worse so let's not do that. This is absolute anathema to every medical institution's insistence that one of the highest priorities needs to be testing so we know who has it, who they've been exposed to, and who needs to go into quarantine. Donald Trump has done everything from dismiss the numbers to peddle untested cures. They are completely, absolutely, grotesquely inept. Literally doing nothing would have been better because then at least the states would have the PPE they had to smuggle in from other countries.

6- Even on my friends list, where you would think the people who follow medical and science advice are pretty well represented, and the vast majority would care about public health risks and have the compassion not to expose vulnerable folks….   EVEN THESE FOLKS are getting Isolation Fatigue. They're starting to post pictures of small social gatherings and "just a couple of friends" and trips with their BFFs. And if they're maintaining cell integrity (and trust implicitly that their friends aren't having another "just a couple of friends" with another group), they can make that work, but done casually, it's just the sort of thing that basically make most social distancing and shelter-in-place rules statistically meaningless.

7a- The most scientifically and medically minded states are still opening back up. We are handling CV-19 the absolute WORST IN THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD, and we're opening back up like we've pretty well got this thing licked. And whether you think they've done enough or not (I happen to think Gavin Newsom has done pretty dang well), reopening can't NOT raise exposure rates, thus cases, and thus––statistically––deaths.

7b- The states that flung their doors open (not soft openings) represent a pretty large contingent whose basic outlook is, "let them die (just a bunch of old fogies anyway*). “ The leader of the Republican party and most of its leadership have said that the economy is more important than the death toll, and have basically doubled down on it already.

[*It’s not.]

8- A shocking number of people, irrespective of "side of the aisle," think they know better than the experts. Not "fuck the libs" no-protection types, but people who think that the exposure rate is probably low enough that they can have dinner parties, or who think that it's not really worse than the flu so it doesn't really matter if they get it, or that masks are useless or whatever. Or my personal fave: that they probably had it last spring when "...remember that bad cough," and really don't need to worry because they're immune. They just....know better. And no epidemiological expert is going to convince them otherwise. And every American exceptionalism cultural narrative plays STRAIGHT into disdain for expertise.

1-8: So I don't really think we're going to get a first and second wave. I think we're going to get just one long mushy wave with lots of hotspots, resurgences, and a highly HIGHLY politicized reaction. While I think it's easy to imagine that in two weeks, all the open states will see the error of their ways and close back up, you also have to realize that these are the same people who have basically called Covid deaths the price of doing business, so it's going to take more than a few days of numbers going up, "that's not a moon" trepidation for them to hear the branch crack under their feet.

And it doesn't end in the fall, no matter how badly politicians want it to.

9- Our healthcare system is about the worst equipped in the industrialized world to handle distribution of a vaccine. I don't have the slightest trouble imagining that it won’t be AFFORDABLE to many people for months or even years.

10- We know for a fact that there will be people and forces actively discouraging using the vaccine that will leave wide gaps in herd immunity––probably for years.

11- An administration that has lowballed, underestimated, and mismanaged everything since they got rid of the pandemic response team..... The same administration that has padded numbers, has openly admitted to not testing to keep numbers low, and is run by a guy so out of touch with numbers that make him look bad that he INSISTS he won the popular vote and his inauguration was bigger.... THOSE GUYS....are predicting 3000 deaths every. single. day. Do you think there's any chance in the world, if that's what they're OPENLY ADMITTING TO RIGHT NOW, that it's going to actually be that low?

12- I don't really put it past our current administration not to descend even further into the depths of depravity to try and get the economy going. I wouldn't put it past them to coerce or even force people back to work. I wouldn't put it past them to mount a propaganda blitz that everything is awesome (when you're part of a team). I wouldn't put it past them to engage in TRULY massive cover-ups. Basically, they're doing all that stuff already, so all we have to do is imagine that *more* of it is happening than we know about, and that they will up their game as they grow more desperate....not exactly a stretch of the ol' imagination.

13- When other countries want and try to send in medical teams to help us, we will refuse because that's the way we treat countries we look down upon.

We have a political party that has, three months in and with clear evidence available of how bad this is, turned doing nothing into a loyalty test for their deepening cult mentality. I think there's very little chance the US is going to suddenly step up and magically govern its way well through a crisis (not until maybe next year--vote!). And I just think we are still thinking we can turn the ship the instant we see an iceberg. But exponential growth is a cruel master; by the time the party who is currently governing might actually admit they were wrong about anything, those numbers will be SOARING out of control. There are ways to get this under control (and other countries have), but we seem to have everything going against us.

Hope I'm way off on this one. Bunch of gut feelings. Not a lick of evidence.

Surely a huge overestimate. Yes.



Please.