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Sure, But What Can I Do? [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-07-01  

If there’s one thing nearly all of us have in common these days, it’s a feeling of powerlessness, or at least dread. Fascism is at the gates. That is a fact. It’s a threat. The sort of threat that holds peril that is real, not imaginary. If fascism gains control over our government, there will be real suffering. There will be real loss. There will almost certainly be death, because authoritarian movements are never benign. THIS authoritarian movement, this flavor of fascism is theocratic, misogynistic, anti-intellectual, and deeply, deeply white supremacist. That’s a lot of enemies for the fascists.

Worse yet, we’ve only recently been shaken from our mistaken, naive belief that it can’t happen here. We’re discovering the hard way things we’ve long ignored. For example, that post-WWII study of authoritarianism determined that every population contains about 25-30% authoritarians...authoritarian leaders and authoritarian followers...by their basic psychology. They can temporarily add to their numbers based on success and demagoguery, and the current fascist movement has assembled all of them into one political party. Looking back at the history of the last 60 years, it’s apparent that every move of the Republican Party has served that purpose, accidentally or deliberately. And then an Idiot Savant with a fantastic native ability in salesmanship saw an opportunity to activate all that explosive potential at once, for his own benefit.

Jesus Christ Almighty, that’s terrifying. So what are we supposed to do? Anything we can, that’s what, but it has to be all hands on deck. Now, like right now. Vote. Get your friends and family to vote. Talk to your coworkers and even total strangers about voting, if you get the opportunity. Volunteer for something. Anything. One alternative is to send postcards to swing state voters. Believe it or not, it makes a difference, and everything that makes a difference right now matters. You can volunteer at Postcards to Swing States.

You don’t have to do that, but please do something. Make small donations to candidates you believe in. I do. Put out a yard sign. Volunteer to knock on doors, work phone banks. Drive people to the polls or pick up absentee ballots, assuming you live where Republicans haven’t criminalized these civic-minded activities. Join a voter registration drive or become a poll worker. But do something.

Because if Democrats vote, we win.

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