In the wild, when threatened, we have a few instinctive reactions. Broadly, they boil down to fight or flight. A forrest fire is cresting the hill? Time to pack up and get out of the way. A cougar comes after you on a hike in the woods or a shark in the water? You can’t outrun them, so the advice is stand and fight. Sometimes a blow to the nose is enough to turn a shark away. Not so sure about a cougar, but fight with all your might and you might get lucky. Doing nothing certainly won’t save you.
So, here we are in the political jungle. If you’re a progressive, you’re about to be under attack. Even if you’re not that liberal, if you need reproductive care, you may find yourself in a choiceless wasteland. Or any healthcare, for that matter, including vaccines. ICE might be roaming your neighborhood looking for people with brown skin to round up.
So, what will it be, fight or flight?
Running away is unpalatable. There aren’t that many good places to run to, for one thing. Roaming the world as an expat is an option only for the wealthy. And maybe you believe, as I do, until proven wrong, that the United States is, for its citizens, still overall the best place for personal freedom and economic opportunity. The powerful engine of capitalism isn’t immediately threatened by this new danger, and it is what has brought us to the pinnacle of economic strength where we now find ourselves. Capitalism needs its nurturing nanny, political stability, which is also under threat. My guess is that if despotism takes hold firmly enough in our country to threaten capitalism, the despots will be tossed out, or the capitalists will leave. If the latter happens, going with them will have to be reconsidered as the best alternative. But we’re a ways away from that outcome just now. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but it’s more like the cougar you see on a ridge across a valley, less like one that has its teeth in your neck.
So, I’m staying. And fighting.
I live in California, a state full of people who broadly share my values. We fight among ourselves from time to time, but mostly we look after one another and respect each other’s rights. In the United States, states have a lot of power to make their own policies, no matter what the federal government is doing. California will continue to offer affordable healthcare and (fairly) decent education. It will continue to offer abortions. It will continue to help the poor and try to help the homeless, although that last part is a challenge even for a state with a big heart and budget.
The front line in my fight, then, will be my home state. I’ll do what I can to keep it humane and progressive. There’s little I can do to change the regrettable backsliding in places like Florida, Texas and my birth state, Tennessee, but I can be vigilant and do my best to keep it from happening in my adopted home state, the place where over the course of our history people of all colors and economic circumstances have come to to pursue their dreams. Dreams that have given us movies and artificial intelligence. Dreams that have bred more dreams, in a virtuous cycle of reinvention and renewal.
And I should point out that what has happened legislatively in Tennessee, Florida and Texas is actually a playbook for what I want for California, just one that led scoring at the wrong end of the field. Those states have, in reaction to what they see as progressive socialism, godlessness and wokeness, adopted a slew of horrific policies on everything from abortion rights to education cirriculuums to who gets to go into what bathrooms. I don’t agree with their policies, but if they can do it, we can do it too, but for progressivism rather than revanchist white male chauvinism.
If we can look after ourselves here in California, maybe the parts of the country that have turned their backs on their fellow countrymen will eventually see the error of their ways. Tariffs will not make them richer, just the opposite; they’ll pay more for anything that is imported or made with imported goods. Tax cuts for the one-percent will not make them richer. Unwanted children will not make their communities stronger. Undernourished and unhealthy families will not make better neighbors. An immigrant round up will be a reign of terror reminiscent of the detention and deportation (and much worse) of Jews and others in Nazi Germany. Reigns of terror never lead to anything good, only more terror.
I have my fingers crossed that those who voted in this pack of idiots will one day wake up and see the light. In the meantime, I’ll defend my home.
