I'm a bit exhausted trying to find the balance between relief that fascism in America has faced some serious setbacks, but worry that the neoliberal order that opened the door for it in the first place is back in charge- so I'll make a thread, and see where I land.

As a quick note- if I describe an argument that a liberal or leftist made but that YOU PERSONALLY never made, I am not talking about you personally and you don't really need to tell me you never argued that. The internet is a big place and we all encounter weird discussions.

Anyway- so first- I'm glad Trump is gone, I think Biden is better than Trump obviously. And I want to honestly respect that the Trump years were a legit source of trauma to a lot of people. I can't get down on people too much for letting the relief over his ousting color their

emotional response, their desire to see a hopeful new day. And for people who woke up to anti-discrimination rules after years of the government trying to attack their humanity and rights- I can't tell anyone they shouldn't feel joy for that.

Do people need a week or so to just be happy? Just be glad they can watch the POTUS give a speech that doesn't personally threaten them or leave us all vaguely terrified? That we can at least be sure Biden isn't going to nuke anyone for hurt feelings, and that's.. a good thing?

If that's what people need, I can be cool with that.
BUT at some point we are going to need to talk about how we got here, and all the problems we can't paper over, and the fact that fascism in America is not beaten.
Rebuffed, but still there.

Sorry, I had a phone call I had to take.
Anyway- let me make an analogy that- yes internet, I know it won't be perfect, but hopefully will be good enough to explain a thing. CW: cancer.

Let's say there was a family, and the father in that family had some really bad ideas and practices which ran his health into the ground, and he ended up with cancer. He beat it, but his doctor warns that he will need to make major changes or it will come back- that's just the

way this cancer goes.
And the father has two kids, one of whom is like "Dad's cancer free, time to party!" and one of whom is like, "No, didn't you hear the doctor? We need to sign Dad up for a gym and get him to stop smoking!"

Like I said, not a perfect analogy at all, but I hope its somewhat good enough to explain where people are at.

I worry a lot. I worry that people will not take some of the hard lessons of the last four years to heart. We know that Trump didn't come out of nowhere, that his

popularity and "movement" didn't disappear.
But its one thing when you have clear daily reminders that will motivate you to do something about the problems out there, and when you don't, and I worry that without those reminders... well, you know, we all get complacent sometimes.

The "culture war", and the hard ideological lines that exist in this country, is exhausting and obnoxious and it isn't going anywhere.
The work to fix shit is going to be painful and we have to keep doing it, there just isn't another way.

And there's going to be fighting internally.
There's some real good out there, though, an upsurge of genuine leftism, and a willingness to point out and fight back against white supremacist patriarchy even amongst those who aren't (yet) left.

So, yea. I'm glad about the Keystone Pipeline. I'm glad about that Peter Robb (who was an anti-union prick) got fired. I didn't really expect either of those things the first day.
But it isn't enough, for the problems we face. We need to do better, and more.

Idk. If Biden needs someone to give out vaccines, I am trained in that and would happily volunteer.
And if he wants to prevent Trump and his fash co-conspirators from being brought to account, he can go fuck himself.
I guess we'll just have to see.