To my liberal Facebook friends;
It’s good that you all are understanding that both Clinton and Trump, in different ways, are horrible options for marginalized communities both here and abroad. No shit, but still very good. I’m especially glad that, at best, you’re #IGuessImWithHer regarding Clinton and not convinced of the classist, whitewashed racist lie that she’d be some kind of huge win for women and justice.
However, I’m yet astounded that people aren’t realizing or naming how it would have been a lot of the same had Sanders been elected in. Because the system, not just the players in it, is what’s fucked up. Because regarding that certain player, BLM had to shout your dude down to get him to (superficially) move beyond his racist, inaccessible, “No War But Class War” Pabst Blue Ribbon, Coachella wanna-be Marxism. I mean, if being willfully obtuse about an overly hyped, barely leftist politician with little follow-through is your thing, alright, just don’t be surprised that it’s not mine.
Because I’m petty and it’s Cancer season, I wish Bernie had succeeded only so, just like with Obama, you all could see it doesn’t change what’s fundamentally wrong with this country, will not erase that it was built on supremacy and thus will continue to result in supremacy until the framework is truly done away with regardless Sanders’ best intentions or, likely, realistically, directly because of them.
I say all of this understanding the realistic and dire need to still engage in the system while it survives on our flesh and blood, even as I truly hate the “chose the lesser of two evils” game. But I’m disappointed that you dropped your vigilance. You dropped your critical eye. You totally decided that for some reason this politician is different. You truly act like he is the second coming and behaved like evangelicals over him. You became defensive over Sanders instead of demanding for better plans and positions and more follow-through and promising to push for accountability and still riot if he wins, which made you eat up mediocrity, bias and manipulation you’d otherwise call out other people for. And that’s a mess.
Going back to Obama, this makes me think of when he was voted in and how the otherwise very vocal anti-war activism in the aughts more or less died (despite war and mass incarceration and deportation still being great issues that worsened under his presidency) because people truly believed the Conservative-leaning centrist would change things and so much of that movement was just reactionary anti-Bush as opposed to truly anti-war regardless who the warmonger is or how he looks or codes his bids for destruction. Even though I said I wish Sanders won just so you could see what difference electoral politics alone wouldn’t make, at the same time I’m glad he wasn’t successful because I believe both decent reform and revolution/liberation work would have taken a large hit just like said anti-war activism did because so many of you would have been merely satisfied and appeased by your successfully elected candidate. You would have eagerly dropped the ball & instead attacked activists and organizers who still kept to the work (like how so many of you did to BLM in Seattle). And that blows. Because the need would still be great but the people power would be distracted by a seemingly clever power move.
That kind of childish allegiance is dangerous, to be so easily impressed by gimmicks and parlor tricks says a lot about what kind of citizen/ally/activist you are. Regardless who is in office, work needs to be done by the people for the people to get us the justice and freedom we truly deserve. You’re either with us or you’re not.
