Discussion Thread: How Are You?

I am really not fucking okay, for reasons that I presume are glaringly obvious.

I am scared and I am tired and I am grieving and I am angry.

Very goddamned angry.

I am angry about a lot of things, which generally can be collectively filed under: Angry about the loss of my country and what looks like the imminent loss of democracy around the world.

I'm not a person who was unaware that the United States had a history — and a present — of harming people under the banners of both of The American Dream and The American Empire.

The reason I am angry is not because I believe we're losing something perfect. It's because we're losing, for now and for probably a very long time, even the possibility of meaningful progress toward a more perfect union, to which I and many other people, in different ways and different fields, have dedicated our lives — often because our lives depend on it.

I'm angry because precisely the things I feared would happen are happening. The things I urgently warned, over and over, would happen if Donald Trump weren't taken seriously, if he got the Republican nomination, if he got the presidency, if Congressional Republicans made no effort to contain him at all, if the press failed utterly to hold him accountable, if everything went wrong in precisely the way it looked like it was going wrong, are happening.

I am angry because all of this was foreseeable, all of it was preventable, but all of the people who saw it and said it were dismissed, discounted, discredited.

And I am angry because a future I have done everything that I can in my own little corner of the world to prevent now feels inexorable.

I am also, as always, glad for this community, particularly in this moment. Anyone who wants to join me in another enormous virtual group hug is welcome.

How are you?