Harris' Democrats

Apologies for the late letter, folks. I have had zero spare time lately. And further apologies that we've waded so far into politics lately, but it's important that we cover it.

I know I said we were largely able to ignore Kamala Harris as more of the same, but I was wrong. She is dragging the Dems rightward more quickly and more overtly than I would have expected, and that's worrying. While we shouldn't count on the Dems to do anything at all, we kinda do count on them. The same way a fetid marsh soaks up rain, we count on the Dems to soak up some of the bullshit from the GOP–blocking bills that would make it illegal not to give guns to babies at birth, that sort of thing.

But if the DNC is any indication, we can't count on them to act as this kind of bulwark any longer. It was bound to happen, and I've said they're turning in this direction, but Harris' DNC speech was a paean to the superiority of the United States, calling for our military to remain lethal, and our borders "secure." Our military is already the largest in the world, by far. We outspend the next several countries on the list combined. It's also one of the largest producers of greenhouse gases. Our border, of course, is the objective of a race between the Dems and GOP for who can be most atrocious the quickest.

The DNC

Harris claims in her speech, which we'll break down shortly, that Donald Trump is an unserious man. Which is true–he's very much a fucking clown. But if we're talking about how serious a person or a platform is, the Democrats give Trump a run for their money.

They claim to be the party of social justice, of progress, and yet they gave space to two cops during their big event. There were zero Trans speakers. There were zero Palestinians. They have claimed, as a central message of Harris' campaign, "joy," yet they do so while supporting an active genocide. Children are being slaughtered, hospitals destroyed, historical mosques bombed. Whose joy, exactly, is being platformed here?

Outside the DNC, Chicago PD arrested journalists. Protestors for Palestine were arrested as well, of course. This is your harm mitigation vote, Dems. This is, supposedly, the party you can push to the left. If one can't protest, if one is not given the space to speak to the party, how should we expect to push?

Harris' Speech

Early in Harris' speech we see her mention the boogeyman of "cartels." This is basically a dog whistle–just one step away from "they're not sending their best." And in case you're not familiar, much–but admittedly not all–of the state of the cartels and their incredibly complicated grip on life in Mexico and Central America is due to the United States. Indeed, because of NAFTA–Bill Clinton's trademark economic policy. So to speak out against the cartels is very much to blame your burning house on a barrel fire you lit in the living room.

Harris made plenty of hay making us afraid of a Trump presidency, as well. Oh, the things he'll take away from us!

We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools. We are not going to let him end programs like Head Start that provide preschool and child care. America, we are not going back. We are charting. A. New. Way. Forward. Forward—to a future with a strong and growing middle class.

And plenty more such drivel. The thing is, with reproductive rights, with environmental protections, with all these things that Trump will take away or already has–they are things the Dems could have given us and protected. Abortion rights could have been enshrined a decade ago. We could have had the start to a. Way. Forward. Through climate change–but we don't. Because it's not profitable to give us these things.

What made perhaps the most headlines from her speech was the line that Harris wants to ensure our military is the "strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world." This, of course, is super gross. The United States has had the largest military in the world for decades, has had technological superiority for decades, and we are one of the only nations on the planet that regularly exercises its might on multiple other nations at a time. To say that we need this kind of military might is to imply that we are under threat, and that threat is an external one. You don't need to say who in a speech for your listeners–and the opposition–to hear you. In fact, the specifics of the who hardly matters here. What matters is more money is pumped into this machine, forever. We will always find enemies and therefore we will always need this military. Roads, schools, healthcare–these things can wait. The nameless Enemy, the kind nebulously extant in Top Guns 1 and 2, they don't want you to have these things. Nevermind you already don't have them, and never did. The Enemy is stopping us from achieving peace, prosperity, all that happy horseshit.

Why This Matters

This letter has been hemorrhaging followers lately, and I suspect it's because I've been so critical of the Dems. That won't change. When I see a politician worth something, I'll refrain from dunking on them.

We cannot fall into, or back into, the programming that has been so successful in this country: that there's only red versus blue, that these are the only viable paths forward, that voting is the whole of your political duty. This is the kind of thinking that keeps these people in power–they quite literally suck your time and energy with these long campaigns, steal every headline with every little quip and gesture, until there's no room left for any other solution. By November, we're exhausted.

I'm as critical of the left as I am of the right because neither side has given us anything that we're owed. We've been tricked into thinking that scraps of social policy and a couple grand during an actual pandemic are herculean efforts by the state to keep us alive. They're not. They're below the bare minimum. We don't exist because of the state; the state exists because of us. Just as workers provide everything in the world–not capitalism, or any economic model, for that matter–workers prop up the state. It is not vice versa.

Kamala Harris is not bringing you joy. She is not bringing poise back to the White House. She is not going to save you. No one in government is. They are, all of them, a parasitic overclass robbing you of what you deserve. Which is everything. You deserve everything. Clean air, clean water, food, housing, safety. You deserve medical care. You deserve a future. People in Palestine deserve a future. We all do.

It's easy to just say these things. But they're true. What's hard is kicking the habit of letting these people stay in charge of us. What's hard is admitting that the lives we've been living don't work, and are getting harder. We've got to admit this, and start to make the kinds of changes we've always talked about here. We have to buck the system, because the system wasn't meant for us.