Jason Kottke posted this piece at his eponymous site before the Fourth of July weekend. I’m glad I didn’t read it then—I would have come away with scant hope. Reading it was like an elbow to the solar plexus. He starts by quoting Tressie McMillan Cottom on Bluesky:

I’m going to be very honest and clear.

I am fully preparing myself to die under this new American regime. That’s not to say that it’s the end of the world. It isn’t. But I am almost 50 years old. It will take so long to do anything with this mess that this is the new normal for me.

I do hope a lot of you run. I hope you vote, sure. Maybe do a general strike or rent strike. All great!

But I spent the last week reading things and this is not, for ME, an electoral fix. So now I will spend time reflecting on how to integrate this normal into my understanding of the future.

Most of this will be personal. Some of it will be public — how we move in the world.

Right now, I know that I need to make a decision on my risk sensitivity. How much can I take? I also need to meditate HARD on accepting the randomness of that risk. No amount of strategy can protect me.

Those are things I am thinking about.

Kottke:

Cottom nails how I’ve been feeling for the past few months […]. America’s democratic collapse has been coming for years, always just over the horizon. But when everything that happened during Trump’s first three months in office happened and (here’s the important part) shockingly little was done by the few groups (Congress, the Supreme Court, the Democratic Party, American corporations & other large institutions, media companies) who had the power to counter it, I knew it was over. And over in a way that is irreversible, for a good long while at least.

Both Cottom and Kottke sum up my gnawing and palpable fears. In conversations with friends, we all keep nodding toward hopefulness, anticipating a Blue Sweep in the midterms and a rout in 2028—we’re all, as Kottke puts it:

Trying not to fall prey to doomerism and subsequently spreading it to others.

But when I’m honest with myself… I think about what it might look like to leave America. I worry about my transgender and immigrant friends being rounded up, or worse. I can’t confidently say we’ll have free and fair elections in 2026—much less a presidential election. And so much more.

It’s unlikely my mom—soon to be 79 and in less-than-ideal health—or any of her generation will survive to see the demise of this regime. At almost 56, I’m not sure if I will either. Optimism feels like a luxury I can’t quite afford.

The issues we’re dealing with aren’t the result of just one man or one party. There are too many “everyday people” supporting this regime’s policies for new leaders to make meaningful change. That no doubt disappoints the many who wish for a quickening of the actuarial tables brought on by one too many cheeseburgers. (I’d much rather see a trial and conviction.) The thing is, our country’s woes are well beyond any one man, and one man’s demise won’t pull us back from the brink. Toppling Trump and his regime is merely a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one, to return this country to health.

This fascistic turn is something we will be battling for a long while, no matter who’s in power. This is, as Anil Dash wrote, “a rest-of-my-life fight.”

Fortunately, Bruce S. in Kottke’s comments provides some of that scarce optimism:

The new regime has not yet consolidated its power on the federal level, let alone among all 50 state governments. Plenty of states are still run by Democratic trifectas and our federal system still gives those state governments real power. […] there’s still a chance to start a liberal counter-revolution. […]

FDR saved our Republic from fascism; it can be done again.