CLH Words

We are less than a month into Trump’s second term. Emotions are high, for good reasons. I see a lot of fear and anger at what he has (tried) to do, and what he will do. Emotions are good. They are a tool, a motivation. We must use them, channel this fear and anger into action, into resistance. A thought on resistance I see often, and agree with, is that we must not comply in advance. Trump’s power largely comes from people deciding to obey him. So we must not obey him in advance. We must not censor ourselves, we must not stop our activism, we must not stop fighting out of fear of what could come, but must continue fighting to ensure that it does not come. We must not comply in advance.

               Yet, this did not start on January 20^th. We did not suddenly enter into hell. His policies, tactics, and evils all come from somewhere, and are part of something larger than him. Trump is not the first fascist in power, not the first president to go against the people, to wage war and genocide. America is built on fascism. Yet many of the people I see screaming not to comply in advance have (and continue to) bow their heads to that larger force that created Trump.

               We, disabled folks and out allies, have been asking people to mask since 2020 (and before!). Yet, despite covid being as prevalent as ever, masking is seen as some fringe practice, and not as the basic praxis it is. The general populace stopped masking before the idea of masking became mainstream. The idea of masking was never able to separate itself from lockdowns and the fear in those early days of covid. It was never allowed to. Masking is a powerful act that threatens the ideas that feed fascism.

Masking is a way to take care of yourself and those around you. It is directly linked to community. It says that you see your choices have a difference on others, and that you choose mild discomfort to support your community. Fascism requires us to not care about each other. It promises that you will be spared if only you give up them. It requires us to say we are okay giving up some for peace from the problems it makes. Masking says that we will not give up the most vulnerable. We will protect them and ourselves. It is a fundamental act of community that does not allow fascism to try and take some in exchange for temporary peace.

 Yet I see people so willing to obey the fascist thought of caring only for yourself. These past five years have proven that so many people will give into fascism so long as they think the comfort it promises is for them. The people cheering on planes, ripping their masks off when Biden announced the sudden end of the federal transportation mask mandate—the only real mask guidance we ever got. People giving me and my friends dirty looks for continuing to mask. People asking why I am still masking if “only those with pre-existing conditions will die” as if they didn’t just tell me to my face they are okay with my death if it means they can breath their germs wherever they wish. Fascism did not start with Trump, and the resistance to masking was a canary in the proverbial coal mine (and by no means the only one. Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia and more led to this).

               So yes, do not obey in advance. Keep resisting. But understand truly what you are resisting. You need to resist more than just Trump. You need to resist the fascist ideas that created him. You need to go to the roots, and resist there. You need to mask. You need to care about your fellow people. You cannot simply resist Trump, because when you do, you are saying that you are okay with fascism, just as long as it is harming someone else and you don’t have to think about it. We must resist all oppression. We must fight all fascism. We must not obey in advance, and it is never too late to start resisting again.