freelansing in Seattle

Here are some thoughts about responding the MAGA assault to come this year. Your thoughts? Please post in comments.

Respond to specific injustices as they arise. Of course. Remember how people shut down airports when the Muslim travel ban was announced last time? A rapid, forceful response that could not be ignored. We’ll need to be ready for whatever, because lots of crazy shit might happen and we don’t know what might be next. Which also means no one can do everything. We’ll likely face a deluge of crises all at once in this 2.0 version. If we go chasing every fire, we’ll burn out quickly. We have to pace ourselves and assume our own lower priority will be someone else’s higher priority. Together we form a web of resistance, doing the best we can.

Expose the disinformation game. It’s not enough to debunk individual lies and misinformation. We’ve been doing that for years. We need to talk more about the whole right-wing system of disinformation—from Fox “News” to right-wing podcasts and social media echo chambers. It’s a well-funded infrastructure of lies designed to “fool enough of the people enough of the time” to take power and pass draconian laws that enrich the few while immiserating the many. Without this whole media ecosystem of disinformation, the MAGA movement would not exist.

Expose the oligarchy/plutocracy underlying MAGA. The MAGA faithful believe they are striking a blow against the elites while they are in fact promoting elite interests. Struggling working folk support billionaires, trusting the billionaires to look out for the little guy. These disparate interests are just conflict waiting to happen. We’ve seen glimpses of that conflict in the battle over H-1B visas. Let’s shine a light on those contradictions and turn the rabble again their puppet-masters.

Elon Musk (who will likely have a high public profile for the foreseeable future) is a poster boy for both disinformation and oligarchic control. Richest man in the world buys a popular social media platform and turns it into a giant misinformation machine, and then rides on the misinformation he unleashed, and adds hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money to buy a majority share of the US government. A perfect villain for our time, whose misdeeds can illuminate so much about what’s wrong with our current system.

Encourage the Democratic Party to focus their message on economic populism, as the harmful effects of oligarchy become more apparent. Acknowledge that people are mad/discouraged about their lives, but clarify that it’s not immigrants or trans people who are harming them. Direct their anger toward billionaires and the oligarchic system that enables elites to control the rest of us. Again, to keep it simple, I think Musk is a good villain/poster boy.

Stick together and support each other, especially the most vulnerable. This is less about political action or messaging than the others, and more about just being good to each other as humans. Fascist/authoritarian regimes always target the most vulnerable first. Lots of people are at risk—let’s make sure we take care of them. And take care of ourselves.

Your thoughts?