Despair, Anger, and the Right to Feel Hopeless (for Today)
The Supreme Court's rulings on trans athletes, birthright citizenship, and campaign finance make today a hard day to argue against doomerism
My plan this morning was to write a column about the scourge of doomerism among certain parts of the Left — the pernicious idea that things have gotten so bad that it’s futile to have hope. From abdicating responsibility for voting in elections to advocating for a no-birth policy because climate change is ruining the planet for any future generations, despair has caused too many people to throw in the towel and turn inward.
That’s not the way I work. Sure, things are terrible right now, worse than they’ve been in decades. I’m angrier than I’ve been since I was shouting “Act Up! Fight back! Fight AIDS!” (And I was pretty fucking angry then.) But I don’t believe in giving up or succumbing to doomer instincts.
Except then I saw today’s news that the Supreme Court had legitimized state laws attacking transgender people playing sports, which will certainly be used to even further drive the absolute hatred and bigotry Trump and Republicans have frothingly fomented over the past decade. This guarantees things will get worse before they get better.
Add to that a skin-of-the-teeth decision affirming birthright citizenship — it’s being reported as a 6-3 vote, which is bad enough, but actually only five of the justices affirmed its constitutionality (Kavanaugh found it to be merely legislative, which of course would be easily repealable). This is, of course, a bunch of racist and ahistorical nonsense and, again, things will get worse before they get better. Republican activists will continue to concoct bogus “originalist” legal theories to keep chipping away at what had been settled law since the Civil War.
Oh, and they opened yet another flow of dark money to allow billionaires even more access and control of the levers of government, because those guys have been doing such a fucking bang-up job over the past two years.
In a rare moment of reading the room, I don’t think today is the day to go on an angry-yet-optimistic rant on the perils of despair. This is a day when it’s okay to embrace both anger and sadness, to experience the hopelessness that comes with a radical government bound and determined to attack anyone who does not conform to their narrow and bigoted idea of what it means to be an American. I don’t have the right to tell people who are directly affected by all this to immediately suck it up and take to the ramparts.
So, feel it. Let it sink in. Take some time, a day or two or three. Maybe the whole damn July 4 weekend, since celebrating the idea of America seems odd when the people running America hate that idea so deeply.
In a few days, we’ll circle back. It hurts now and it’s going to keep hurting for the foreseeable future. But we will turn this back and make things right, if not for ourselves now then for the people who come after us.
Until then, take care of yourself and the people you care for. We all need that.
