I feel almost comically ill-prepared for the current situation that our country is in. A fun little computer-boy typing away at his laptop, so small as if to be nothing, set against the backdrop of groups of masked men accountable only to the President abducting people in cities across the United States. It is, in many ways, almost too much to comprehend. I say that as someone whose identity has always been wrapped up in paying very careful attention, reading diverse news sources, triangulating truth amidst the warped fog of internet and twitter, x, bluesky, mastodon, tiktok, instagram reels, twitch livestreams, and the occasional Times from the deli. Being armed with those tools and years of practice 'being aware', I don't feel any more prepared for the situation we are facing now, today, at this very hour. I just feel very aware of how fucked everything feels.
A winter storm is bearing down on the Northeast, travel bans instituted on downstate New York counties, and Monday's school already cancelled, even though it's only Sunday morning. This snow is blanketing much of the east coast, and millions of Americans are at home, staring at their small screens, their medium screens, and their big screens. The story they are seeing is that a VA nurse, a person who has likely served more than many of us ever will, tried to protect a member of his community from a crowd of armed masked men. They surrounded him, forced him to the ground, removed the gun from his waistband, and then emptied their clips into him as he lay on the ground. As others came to render care, they noticed the ICE officers counting the bullet holes inflicted instead of doing CPR. That detail stuck with me.
The officers more concerned with their internal meme, "5 shots, 7 holes" than the life of the human being in front of them. Men who treat other people's lives as if they are the backdrop of one of those made-for-instagram museums, but instead the underlying themes are death and power and subjugation. We have seen this before from modern warzones, and it would be an intelligent guess to suggest that these are just echoes of behavior that young men have exhibited for millennia; but isn't that the point? When left unchecked we can see what this means for the civilians around them; roving deathsquads of war tourist IDF soldiers in gaza, internal gangs in the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department with tattoos for every kill, and of course, to say so is almost passe, even a bit hack, but of course the most memorable examples might be the roving SS death squads.
I have had to remind myself of my morality, not dictated by my enemies. That even if someone attacked me, wanted me dead, held despicable views, I would still render them care to prevent their death. Not for their benefit, but for the benefit of my own soul. To be the type of man I want to be. To do unto others as I would want done unto me.
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In the scope of all this, it seems very silly to sit at my computer and study inductors and capacitors, work on my nvim plugins, think about Artificial Intelligence, or really engage in any activity that isn't actively working to prevent the spread and continuation of a future I am seeing in the news today.
I do remember, as I photographed a protest in midtown the day after Trump was elected, that many folks seemed to have some vision of this in mind, some knowledge of what was being unlocked as his movement ascended. But all but the most pessimistic of us dared to fear that it would become our reality in such starkly high-contrast comic-book villainy. Perhaps we thought they would be more clever, more patient, to simply use the quietly-evil machinations the neoliberals had already built and carefully maintained. But no, they are far too greedy. They are seizing every monstrous archetype of evil and swearing an oath to their new identity of Big Scary Guy Who Does Awful Things. The only thing that matters is power, what I can do to you, what you will let me do.
When I was 19 years old I had just driven across the country in my blue Honda Element with my best friend, and immediately fell in love with Oakland, moving into an apartment across from the federal building a few blocks from City Hall.
It was there in Oakland I was taught, through lived experience, the power of blasting Michael Jackson and having a dance partyin a street that minutes prior had been filled with tear gas and cops in riot gear. The dance party was not diminishing the intensity of the moment, it was transmuting it, proclaiming righteously; "our joy is more powerful than you, we laugh in your face" – it bonded us together, unified us, and the lack of fear it built in us was contagious. Perhaps that is what is needed now.