THREAD Since Jan. 20, 2017, I have been terrorized by the Trump presidency as a lesbian, as a #disabled person, as a journalist. I have reported hundreds of stories of how marginalized groups in particluar have been harmed by Trump's policies, even in his final days.
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I have reported on the uptick in poverty under Trump, particularly among women and LGBTQ people. I have written relentlessly about #healthcare and how each year under Trump fewer Americans had access to it and more people were bankrupted and having to crowdfund medical bills.
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I have written about violence against POC: the relentlessness of it. The anti-Black animus. The hatred of brown immigrants--even babies. I have reported on the way Trump and his extremist white nationalist cohort have stoked violence from Charlottesville to the Insurrection.
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There's been so much to report under Trump, crucial stories get lost, erased by some new Trump-fueled crisis in our country. I'd write about homelessness under Trump or the rise in environmental racism under him or the loss of access to elder care--all erased by new headlines.
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It's been hard to be an in independent left journalist under Trump, esp since the pandemic. Trump has made America monomaniacal: We can only focus on one or two stories at a time. Do folks think #gunviolence or #climatechange are over? They are both more terrible, not less.
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This past #pandemic year has been the worst. Trying to remind readers that as horrific as the pandemic is and has been, we can't afford to ignore other crises. Yet we have. And so much has happened that is laterally as dangerous to us as a nation and to our global standing.
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I have literally counted the hours till the Inauguration since Jan. 6. As I write this it's more 29hrs till I can exhale--till America can exhale. Folks who were able to coast through the past 4yrs untouched by Trump can't imagine the relief some of us will feel as he goes.
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But Trump has left a deep bloodstain on this country--we will never get it fully out. After Biden and Harris are sworn in, the hard work of re-building the nation begins. But that can't happen without some measure of Truth and Reconciliation. There must be a reckoning.
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Too many want to wipe the slate clean. Start over. Every day there are more Democrats in my mentions lecturing me to stop talking about Trump and the GOP, while using magical thinking talking points about Biden, like we can get everything we want, now. We thought that in 2009.
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It won't be so simple. We will have to fight the GOP and many of our own people to get what we want and need. We need accountability, first and foremost. That is how democracies remain democracies--through self-examination. At 12:01
pm on Jan. 20 that work begins. Get ready.
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The white nationalism that Trump made his platform is emboldened. Jan.6 happened because the President of the United States wanted it to. He wanted a big bold show of fealty. He got it. And the world looked on, horrified at what we'd become. But it wasn't just Trump to blame.
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The GOP abdicated their sworn duties under the 14th Amendment. 139 House reps and 6 senators tried to sunder our democracy and they are still sitting in those seats. That MUST be addressed. They cannot be absolved of that derilection of duty to our republic.
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The temptation will be to "let it go." Many of you will say we have to prioritize Biden building his Cabinet and you will chastise left Congresswomen calling for accountability. Yet they were there, their lives were threatened. So I am saying: we can and MUST do both.
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To "build back better," we must build on solid ground, not shifting sands. And Trump and those GOP seditionists cannot be allowed to escape accountability. You can start now by contacting your reps & senators and demanding that. The work to reclaim America calls upon us all.
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