But Ally….Barack wore a TAN SUIT and his wife dared to show her well toned arms in a sleeveless getup. Have they no dignity? You can see how these sartorial blunders led to where we’re at now, right?
So far your plan is the most comprehensive one I’ve seen in writing. Greatly appreciated. Can I send a Trader Joe’s gift certificate for a bag of peanut butter pretzels and a bottle of wine? I think they probably have a bell ringing code for “nice democrat lady in crisis” by now….
Hahahaha. They should just have emotional support humans with the bag of chocolate covered pretzels at the ready. Or peanut butter pretzels. Down for either. And that fucking tan suit, her ripped arms, and Kamala’s laugh. How would we ever have survived? Excuse me, I have to go block someone 🤣🤷🏻♀️🤌🏼
Just so. This is a vision forward. I swear if the Dems don’t get on this… I’ll what? Cry with you? I remember all of it. I was a kid when Regan sent the first bulldozers. I hope I live to see post-Trump sanity. One thing I’d add, though, to election integrity is totally publicly funded elections. No more money is speech bullshit. Oh, and the disinformation machine must be unplugged. It has to be illegal to lie and call it News.
Yes! See? This is why it needs to be collaborative because we’re all exhausted (I should speak for myself, I am exhausted) and the more insightful, thoughtful, visionary people thinking about what it is we want, the better. But yes to both of your points, absolutely. We need like a Dems 2.0 or something. If we don’t start moving we’re screwed.
I just read your freaking fantastic last essay and I subscribed to your stack and I am so glad I went and looked at your work. Which I shall be sharing, rest assured.
Totally agree. It's all so strange and there are so many moments I feel like I'm in the upside down. People are looking at the same things and telling you to relax and you're like *relax*?!?! I mean, the house is on fire, what are you saying? I just blocked a woman who called us all whores lol. I don't know, Bill. I have to laugh or I'll cry. But if the question is us or them, I sure hope it's us, because no matter what happens, we're in this shindig together. That's the part. I'd be very happy if they all wanted to go to Mars with their robot dolls and leave us here to fix the mess. Thank you so much for being here <3
I am so moved by this I shared it with my FB friends (who might read it) and just commented, “this is where we are”. Wonderfully written and thank you.
You’ve given us a fantastic outline. Made it easy to follow and your vision is spot on.
I want to live in that world— I want to go out after dark alone with headphones; and know my nieces have access to abortion because they have a body and the fucking right to do what they want with it; and to not have my human rights voted on every 4 fucking years, and on and on and on.
Your mind is so sharp and your heart so deep, Ally— of course you could make an outline for Project Forever.
Aw Kate, I want to live in that world with you along with a million other things other people need to figure out because I don’t know how we do this, but I know we should be doing it. I was listening to an interview with David Hogg and another one with Pete Buttigieg this week (I linked the David one to his name and Pete’s is on his page if you want to check it out), but they were both so good. And I came away feeling this so strongly. We want to “take it to the streets” but take WHAT to the streets? Pithy signs? I mean, yes, but you know what I’m saying. There’s a failure of cohesion, leadership and vision going on and I think we better get on it. Anyway. Preaching to the choir. I’m so tired of these awful people. I want to focus on what we want and figure out how we start heading there. Love you. Barley slept.
When I was a Residency Program Director in Appleton, WI, I decided I needed to learn something about administration and business stuff. So I got a subscription to the Harvard Business Review. And in reading from that journal I found out about something that could maybe help us with plans for the future. They call it ‘benchmarking.’ The idea is, that you look around and find out what other people in your field or business are doing, paying special attention to those that are performing better than you. Once you do that, you likely have a notebook with page after page of ideas about why the other guy is doing better than you. Then you work on putting the best ideas in your notebook to work in your own company, and you watch your outfit doing better and better and maybe you get a nice raise or a bonus out of all this.
Now, in my field, which is in health care, we are extremely lucky—because every other developed country in the world has better health care than we do. They spend much less per capita on health care than we do, and their results are better than ours in almost any area of health care. Benchmarking off of, say, Canada, or Sweden, or Switzerland, even the UK, ought to be as easy as falling off a log. In fact, just about any change to our health care system would be for the better—we’ve gone as far down as a wealthy country could go, even if we had had a panel of experts working for years and at great expense to design and implement the worst possible health care system, ever. The only way we can go is up, because we’ve reached rock bottom.
I think this principle of benchmarking could be applied in many, many other areas of American life—because, face it people, we don’t do much of anything very well these days—certainly in the last four months or so things have gone from bad to very much worse. So, we’d better get our thumbs out and get to work, learning from all those foreigners who somehow manage to do almost anything better than we do, and for less money—usually a lot less. Otherwise, all our children will have to learn Chinese to make their way in the world.
This is exactly the kind of comment I was hoping for and exactly what I’m thinking. We need to roll our sleeves up and get to work on every front figuring out policy positions and plans. And yes, healthcare here is horrendous and that’s just me, a person with health insurance - you’re on the inside. I really hope we can get people to embrace this stance and get moving, but also, I don’t want to wait. If it isn’t going to get done then I guess we do it, together. Thanks so much for your comments. Great stuff.
"It’s taken 45 years to get here, but that’s when this current version of our “great experiment” began, and those of us who were kids at the time are not confused because we watched it happen. We were old enough to know something wasn’t right, and we are still young enough to remember the only thing that did trickle down - the callousness."
Insert that meme of Dicaprio pointing wildly at the TV in agreeance.
This is amazing, and depressing, but also heartening. My adolescence was punctuated by assassinations, antiwar demonstrations, anti-abortion violence, and culminated with Watergate. Lots of uproar, but we did have a functioning Congress.
The US right now reminds me of the old joke, "There are three kinds of people in the world: those who believe in vampires, those who don't believe in vampires, and those who are vampires."
I think we are still at a point where those who don't believe in vampires just can't understand how anyone does.
Those who believe think our paralysis means we are weak. Meanwhile, the vampires are flying about, draining as much blood as they can, until we get it together and drive the figurative stake through their dark hearts. The dragging out into the sunlight has already begun. We just need to keep up the struggle, however we can.
I feel the same. Sad and scared and depressed we’ve gotten to this place, and also not totally without hope. And I love your comments so much. Had not heard the vampire joke but if that doesn’t sum things up right now, what does?? Sending you all the hugs and love and solidarity. Really hoping people wake up and start moving, but we will make our own document if that’s what it comes down to! ❤️❤️🩹
Thank you, Ally🧡 I wasn't really up to Substack yesterday, and today's not much better, but this morning I saw that Trump said he's close to a nuclear deal with Iran. Apparently Iran refuted this. So, are there enough people in Congress yet who don't want to see the US go down in flames? Asking for some friends…
I’ve never seen a president and so many members of his cabinet beg to be removed from office harder than this one. If only we had systems in place to make it happen…oh, wait.
You’ve outdone yourself with this one, Ally. Goes to show what can happen when raw emotion/rage is channeled into a creative essay. Very powerful, indeed. And the question about messaging is as pertinent as ever.
Personally, I’m not too hopeful that our outdated two-party system + the idiotic electoral collage + ever-increasing gerrymandering can get the job done, given that one party stands for Nazi Univision and the other for…everything else. You’ve named a few good and promising politicians, and it may well be that the pendulum next time will swing in AOC’s direction (fingers crossed); but will that permanently fix the problem of our binary system? We swing from red to blue, from blue to red, from evil to less evil, from benign and almost nice to evil again. Is this the best we can hope for?
Our government does need an overhaul, and I for one would love to see the two-party system dismantled in favor of a representational democracy. In many European states, any party that gets 5 % of the popular vote gets to send representatives to parliament, where Greens and Communists must form coalitions with Fiscal Conservatives to protect wetlands. It’s messy, but it is representational, and no one party ever gets enough votes to control anything unilaterally (In Germany, we learned from the Nazis). It’s not a perfect system but a step towards real democracy? Just my drunk thoughts…
“By the way, do you know when you sit down in the aisle at Trader Joe’s and hold your head and start laughing these days, people stop to ask if you’re okay?” – at least, nice, caring people are still out there. May there always be somebody to ask us how we are while we cry in the frozen section. xoxoxoxo
I mean this is EXACTLY why I want a collaboration because yes, I love that idea. Proportional representation would be a lot more fair than what we have now. I am in no way attached to the 2-party system and I agree it isn’t working for us. Love your drunk thoughts. I wish we could all meet in the aisles of TJs or anywhere. That’s my other project!
Thank you so much, Renee. I almost attached a document we could all share and markup. Maybe I should. I know there’s the whole “who are we to do this?” feeling, but actually we are the “we” in we the people, right? Gotta start somewhere.
Yes - if these words were a quilt, I’d wrap myself in them. I admit that I’m stuck. I think we all are because I can’t march in to DC and make changes. I’m doing what I can but it feels so small. I don’t like feeling powerless and out of control. So I find myself staring into space thinking many of these same things. How the fuck did we get here? You nailed it with Ronnie and Nancy. I found myself -or my own political footing -during that horrible time. I saw first hand the damage they did to the gay community and, honestly, medical science. I won’t be in Trader Joe’s frozen aisle because my town is too small and MAGA, but I will be floating in the pool (It’s FL - everyone has a pool but not a good grocery store. lol) staring endlessly at the clouds remembering fighting religious protesters in front of planned parenthood back in the 80’s proudly demanding they let women pass for care (of any kind) and I never thought I would watch our rights get stripped so fast. I think I’m babbling now. I was going to leave a one liner thanking you …
Oh listen, babbling is so welcome. I think we are all just hurting and hungry for connection and conversation and a way out of this mess. I wish I could come float in the pool with you, but I take comfort in the fact that this helped and I look forward to more conversation. I’m so happy you’re here, Penelope ❤️
Thank you for writing this. It made my morning to read something that makes complete sense. I'm with you on the 10-year-old. Although kids may not be able to understand subtleties well enough to make wise decisions as far as running a country, they certainly can suss out BS better than adults. We are living in backwards world right now, where everything right is wrong.
It really is exhausting and disheartening sometimes. I am using every tool I’ve got, gallows humor, sarcasm, feeling my feelings, meditation,
memes, great friends, writing, walks, screaming into the abyss, yoga, calling my senators, staring into the middle distance, letting people merge, planting wildflowers, making lasagna, writing snarky comebacks on social media, crying into my sleeve, learning the latest slang by listening to my teenagers and then horrifying them by using it, staring at dogs for adoption, looking at properties in Mexico, editing my memoir…anyway. You get the picture. It’s all insane and nothing makes sense except holding onto each other, trying to keep each other safe, and seeing what we can do to change course asap. Because this is nuts.
Yes, it's funny how in 2017 it felt like being hooked in was so important. Now I feel like pulling weeds, making homemade yogurt, and having coffee with friends is much more important. In a post-truth era, I read a piece like yours with so much truth in it and it's so frustrating to know that many people have erected walls to keep truth out. I know I could feed them my homemade yogurt or show them my green bin full of weeds and they would see that as truth. But if I say people shouldn't have weapons of war in their homes, which is as obvious as a weed, they turn off. All I can hope is that like many cult members, one day they will wake up and walk away from the lie.
Thanks so much, Ann. It feels a lot better to think about what we want and can do instead of all the crap they are doing. At least that’s a start. Hugs and love and thank you for being ready to ride 🤍
This is great, wonderful ideas and vision for a better future. But I can’t help thinking it’s all a bit late for this now. Like, how? Do you really think the 2028 election will be free and fair? I may be wrong but I can’t think of any examples where fascists have been democratically voted out of power.
I worry about this too, of course. I have no faith at all that they will go willingly or follow the Constitution or the rule of law, or that we will have free and fair elections and/or the peaceful transfer of power. They’re showing us every day that they are happy to challenge every norm. But I know for sure if those of us who are despairing don’t organize and come up with a very strong vision and a plan, we will not be able to motivate people to fight back. My thinking is if there is a groundswell of enthusiasm and support for something else, and that something else is concrete, it becomes easier to get people to take action. I don’t know what that action is, either, but I know we need to have a very clear picture of what we’re fighting for, and not just who we’re fighting against. Because there are too many people who are just not going to join in without that and I think we need them. That’s my thinking. Would love to know what you think. And so happy you’re here, Tony 🤍
Ally, I love you so much for saying all of this. And for naming so many of my favorite voices for your cabinet, for parliament, for places in the expanding mycelium-rings of a witches’ circle, or a collective consciousness. (I don’t know, insomnia or dream?) I am adding Loretta Ross, Adrienne Maree Brown, and Jasmine Crockett to the vision-leadership manifest. It was worth waking up in the wee hours to read this and imagine a better world that we can, will, must all make together.
I love all of your additions, Holly. I have not been sleeping much this week, I wonder if we’re all awake and trying to figure out how to save the world. I wish we could meet under the moon somewhere, I am longing for an actual circle with hand holding and maybe some howling. But this will do for now 🤍🤍🤍
But Ally….Barack wore a TAN SUIT and his wife dared to show her well toned arms in a sleeveless getup. Have they no dignity? You can see how these sartorial blunders led to where we’re at now, right?
So far your plan is the most comprehensive one I’ve seen in writing. Greatly appreciated. Can I send a Trader Joe’s gift certificate for a bag of peanut butter pretzels and a bottle of wine? I think they probably have a bell ringing code for “nice democrat lady in crisis” by now….
Hahahaha. They should just have emotional support humans with the bag of chocolate covered pretzels at the ready. Or peanut butter pretzels. Down for either. And that fucking tan suit, her ripped arms, and Kamala’s laugh. How would we ever have survived? Excuse me, I have to go block someone 🤣🤷🏻♀️🤌🏼
First half: FACE PALM! Second half: ALLY FOR PRESIDENT!
Ha. Face palm indeed and god, I don’t want to be president unless you’re all coming with me and we can do it together like a group project 🤣🤣
Let’s do it! Women get the job done!
That I would do! 💪🏼☺️
Just so. This is a vision forward. I swear if the Dems don’t get on this… I’ll what? Cry with you? I remember all of it. I was a kid when Regan sent the first bulldozers. I hope I live to see post-Trump sanity. One thing I’d add, though, to election integrity is totally publicly funded elections. No more money is speech bullshit. Oh, and the disinformation machine must be unplugged. It has to be illegal to lie and call it News.
Yes! See? This is why it needs to be collaborative because we’re all exhausted (I should speak for myself, I am exhausted) and the more insightful, thoughtful, visionary people thinking about what it is we want, the better. But yes to both of your points, absolutely. We need like a Dems 2.0 or something. If we don’t start moving we’re screwed.
Yes, yes, yes! You tempt me toward hope, because those people do exist.
I just read your freaking fantastic last essay and I subscribed to your stack and I am so glad I went and looked at your work. Which I shall be sharing, rest assured.
You make my eyes fill. I thought no one would read it. Howling into the wind. But a wolf is a wolf is a wolf.
I mean yes, always howl, but some howling must be spread!
This is perfect and I’m at a loss for words. We have been pushed up against a wall and something has to give. Us or them?
Totally agree. It's all so strange and there are so many moments I feel like I'm in the upside down. People are looking at the same things and telling you to relax and you're like *relax*?!?! I mean, the house is on fire, what are you saying? I just blocked a woman who called us all whores lol. I don't know, Bill. I have to laugh or I'll cry. But if the question is us or them, I sure hope it's us, because no matter what happens, we're in this shindig together. That's the part. I'd be very happy if they all wanted to go to Mars with their robot dolls and leave us here to fix the mess. Thank you so much for being here <3
Ally,
I am so moved by this I shared it with my FB friends (who might read it) and just commented, “this is where we are”. Wonderfully written and thank you.
Thank you so much, Bill. You made my night.
You’ve given us a fantastic outline. Made it easy to follow and your vision is spot on.
I want to live in that world— I want to go out after dark alone with headphones; and know my nieces have access to abortion because they have a body and the fucking right to do what they want with it; and to not have my human rights voted on every 4 fucking years, and on and on and on.
Your mind is so sharp and your heart so deep, Ally— of course you could make an outline for Project Forever.
Now. Whose hands do we need to get this into?
Aw Kate, I want to live in that world with you along with a million other things other people need to figure out because I don’t know how we do this, but I know we should be doing it. I was listening to an interview with David Hogg and another one with Pete Buttigieg this week (I linked the David one to his name and Pete’s is on his page if you want to check it out), but they were both so good. And I came away feeling this so strongly. We want to “take it to the streets” but take WHAT to the streets? Pithy signs? I mean, yes, but you know what I’m saying. There’s a failure of cohesion, leadership and vision going on and I think we better get on it. Anyway. Preaching to the choir. I’m so tired of these awful people. I want to focus on what we want and figure out how we start heading there. Love you. Barley slept.
When I was a Residency Program Director in Appleton, WI, I decided I needed to learn something about administration and business stuff. So I got a subscription to the Harvard Business Review. And in reading from that journal I found out about something that could maybe help us with plans for the future. They call it ‘benchmarking.’ The idea is, that you look around and find out what other people in your field or business are doing, paying special attention to those that are performing better than you. Once you do that, you likely have a notebook with page after page of ideas about why the other guy is doing better than you. Then you work on putting the best ideas in your notebook to work in your own company, and you watch your outfit doing better and better and maybe you get a nice raise or a bonus out of all this.
Now, in my field, which is in health care, we are extremely lucky—because every other developed country in the world has better health care than we do. They spend much less per capita on health care than we do, and their results are better than ours in almost any area of health care. Benchmarking off of, say, Canada, or Sweden, or Switzerland, even the UK, ought to be as easy as falling off a log. In fact, just about any change to our health care system would be for the better—we’ve gone as far down as a wealthy country could go, even if we had had a panel of experts working for years and at great expense to design and implement the worst possible health care system, ever. The only way we can go is up, because we’ve reached rock bottom.
I think this principle of benchmarking could be applied in many, many other areas of American life—because, face it people, we don’t do much of anything very well these days—certainly in the last four months or so things have gone from bad to very much worse. So, we’d better get our thumbs out and get to work, learning from all those foreigners who somehow manage to do almost anything better than we do, and for less money—usually a lot less. Otherwise, all our children will have to learn Chinese to make their way in the world.
This is exactly the kind of comment I was hoping for and exactly what I’m thinking. We need to roll our sleeves up and get to work on every front figuring out policy positions and plans. And yes, healthcare here is horrendous and that’s just me, a person with health insurance - you’re on the inside. I really hope we can get people to embrace this stance and get moving, but also, I don’t want to wait. If it isn’t going to get done then I guess we do it, together. Thanks so much for your comments. Great stuff.
"It’s taken 45 years to get here, but that’s when this current version of our “great experiment” began, and those of us who were kids at the time are not confused because we watched it happen. We were old enough to know something wasn’t right, and we are still young enough to remember the only thing that did trickle down - the callousness."
Insert that meme of Dicaprio pointing wildly at the TV in agreeance.
It is inserted on the tv screen in my mind! 🤍
AWESOME! Let’s get started.
Clearly I need to create a shared document 💙 It would be the greatest thing ever if the revolution started on Google Drive #signofthetimes
This is amazing, and depressing, but also heartening. My adolescence was punctuated by assassinations, antiwar demonstrations, anti-abortion violence, and culminated with Watergate. Lots of uproar, but we did have a functioning Congress.
The US right now reminds me of the old joke, "There are three kinds of people in the world: those who believe in vampires, those who don't believe in vampires, and those who are vampires."
I think we are still at a point where those who don't believe in vampires just can't understand how anyone does.
Those who believe think our paralysis means we are weak. Meanwhile, the vampires are flying about, draining as much blood as they can, until we get it together and drive the figurative stake through their dark hearts. The dragging out into the sunlight has already begun. We just need to keep up the struggle, however we can.
I feel the same. Sad and scared and depressed we’ve gotten to this place, and also not totally without hope. And I love your comments so much. Had not heard the vampire joke but if that doesn’t sum things up right now, what does?? Sending you all the hugs and love and solidarity. Really hoping people wake up and start moving, but we will make our own document if that’s what it comes down to! ❤️❤️🩹
Thank you, Ally🧡 I wasn't really up to Substack yesterday, and today's not much better, but this morning I saw that Trump said he's close to a nuclear deal with Iran. Apparently Iran refuted this. So, are there enough people in Congress yet who don't want to see the US go down in flames? Asking for some friends…
I’ve never seen a president and so many members of his cabinet beg to be removed from office harder than this one. If only we had systems in place to make it happen…oh, wait.
You’ve outdone yourself with this one, Ally. Goes to show what can happen when raw emotion/rage is channeled into a creative essay. Very powerful, indeed. And the question about messaging is as pertinent as ever.
Personally, I’m not too hopeful that our outdated two-party system + the idiotic electoral collage + ever-increasing gerrymandering can get the job done, given that one party stands for Nazi Univision and the other for…everything else. You’ve named a few good and promising politicians, and it may well be that the pendulum next time will swing in AOC’s direction (fingers crossed); but will that permanently fix the problem of our binary system? We swing from red to blue, from blue to red, from evil to less evil, from benign and almost nice to evil again. Is this the best we can hope for?
Our government does need an overhaul, and I for one would love to see the two-party system dismantled in favor of a representational democracy. In many European states, any party that gets 5 % of the popular vote gets to send representatives to parliament, where Greens and Communists must form coalitions with Fiscal Conservatives to protect wetlands. It’s messy, but it is representational, and no one party ever gets enough votes to control anything unilaterally (In Germany, we learned from the Nazis). It’s not a perfect system but a step towards real democracy? Just my drunk thoughts…
“By the way, do you know when you sit down in the aisle at Trader Joe’s and hold your head and start laughing these days, people stop to ask if you’re okay?” – at least, nice, caring people are still out there. May there always be somebody to ask us how we are while we cry in the frozen section. xoxoxoxo
I mean this is EXACTLY why I want a collaboration because yes, I love that idea. Proportional representation would be a lot more fair than what we have now. I am in no way attached to the 2-party system and I agree it isn’t working for us. Love your drunk thoughts. I wish we could all meet in the aisles of TJs or anywhere. That’s my other project!
I love your “visioning.” That’s what we need, a vision of a better way. It can’t happen if we can’t imagine it.
Thank you so much, Renee. I almost attached a document we could all share and markup. Maybe I should. I know there’s the whole “who are we to do this?” feeling, but actually we are the “we” in we the people, right? Gotta start somewhere.
Yes - if these words were a quilt, I’d wrap myself in them. I admit that I’m stuck. I think we all are because I can’t march in to DC and make changes. I’m doing what I can but it feels so small. I don’t like feeling powerless and out of control. So I find myself staring into space thinking many of these same things. How the fuck did we get here? You nailed it with Ronnie and Nancy. I found myself -or my own political footing -during that horrible time. I saw first hand the damage they did to the gay community and, honestly, medical science. I won’t be in Trader Joe’s frozen aisle because my town is too small and MAGA, but I will be floating in the pool (It’s FL - everyone has a pool but not a good grocery store. lol) staring endlessly at the clouds remembering fighting religious protesters in front of planned parenthood back in the 80’s proudly demanding they let women pass for care (of any kind) and I never thought I would watch our rights get stripped so fast. I think I’m babbling now. I was going to leave a one liner thanking you …
Oh listen, babbling is so welcome. I think we are all just hurting and hungry for connection and conversation and a way out of this mess. I wish I could come float in the pool with you, but I take comfort in the fact that this helped and I look forward to more conversation. I’m so happy you’re here, Penelope ❤️
Thank you for writing this. It made my morning to read something that makes complete sense. I'm with you on the 10-year-old. Although kids may not be able to understand subtleties well enough to make wise decisions as far as running a country, they certainly can suss out BS better than adults. We are living in backwards world right now, where everything right is wrong.
It really is exhausting and disheartening sometimes. I am using every tool I’ve got, gallows humor, sarcasm, feeling my feelings, meditation,
memes, great friends, writing, walks, screaming into the abyss, yoga, calling my senators, staring into the middle distance, letting people merge, planting wildflowers, making lasagna, writing snarky comebacks on social media, crying into my sleeve, learning the latest slang by listening to my teenagers and then horrifying them by using it, staring at dogs for adoption, looking at properties in Mexico, editing my memoir…anyway. You get the picture. It’s all insane and nothing makes sense except holding onto each other, trying to keep each other safe, and seeing what we can do to change course asap. Because this is nuts.
Yes, it's funny how in 2017 it felt like being hooked in was so important. Now I feel like pulling weeds, making homemade yogurt, and having coffee with friends is much more important. In a post-truth era, I read a piece like yours with so much truth in it and it's so frustrating to know that many people have erected walls to keep truth out. I know I could feed them my homemade yogurt or show them my green bin full of weeds and they would see that as truth. But if I say people shouldn't have weapons of war in their homes, which is as obvious as a weed, they turn off. All I can hope is that like many cult members, one day they will wake up and walk away from the lie.
Yes, figure out how we start heading there and I’m right with you! I feel this pain too!
Great piece. ❤️
Thanks so much, Ann. It feels a lot better to think about what we want and can do instead of all the crap they are doing. At least that’s a start. Hugs and love and thank you for being ready to ride 🤍
This is great, wonderful ideas and vision for a better future. But I can’t help thinking it’s all a bit late for this now. Like, how? Do you really think the 2028 election will be free and fair? I may be wrong but I can’t think of any examples where fascists have been democratically voted out of power.
I worry about this too, of course. I have no faith at all that they will go willingly or follow the Constitution or the rule of law, or that we will have free and fair elections and/or the peaceful transfer of power. They’re showing us every day that they are happy to challenge every norm. But I know for sure if those of us who are despairing don’t organize and come up with a very strong vision and a plan, we will not be able to motivate people to fight back. My thinking is if there is a groundswell of enthusiasm and support for something else, and that something else is concrete, it becomes easier to get people to take action. I don’t know what that action is, either, but I know we need to have a very clear picture of what we’re fighting for, and not just who we’re fighting against. Because there are too many people who are just not going to join in without that and I think we need them. That’s my thinking. Would love to know what you think. And so happy you’re here, Tony 🤍
Ally, I love you so much for saying all of this. And for naming so many of my favorite voices for your cabinet, for parliament, for places in the expanding mycelium-rings of a witches’ circle, or a collective consciousness. (I don’t know, insomnia or dream?) I am adding Loretta Ross, Adrienne Maree Brown, and Jasmine Crockett to the vision-leadership manifest. It was worth waking up in the wee hours to read this and imagine a better world that we can, will, must all make together.
I love all of your additions, Holly. I have not been sleeping much this week, I wonder if we’re all awake and trying to figure out how to save the world. I wish we could meet under the moon somewhere, I am longing for an actual circle with hand holding and maybe some howling. But this will do for now 🤍🤍🤍
I’m down for some hand holding and howling - name the place and moon phase and I will be there!
I also saw you already had Jasmine Crockett in your cabinet - blaming the earbud that wasn’t in the pillow at 4AM.
Thank you again - now I’m even looking forward to the next pre-dawn problem solving sesh 💗
If I knew I was meeting up with all of you, I would welcome the insomnia!