“What’s going to happen in this next election? I’m terrified about what could possibly happen, because our leaders matter. Who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit, it affects us in ways sometimes I think people take for granted,” Obama told Jay Shetty on his podcast “On Purpose.”
“The fact that people think that government — ‘eh, does it really even do anything?’ — and I’m like ‘Oh my God, does government do everything for us, and we cannot take this democracy for granted.’ And I worry sometimes that we do. Those are the things that keep me up,” she said.
“The bars are different for people in life. That I’ve learned,” she said.
Without naming Trump, she continued: “Other people can be indicted a bunch of times and still run for office. Black men can’t. You just learn to be good. And in the end, you benefit from that extra resilience.”
You are correct of course. As has played out historically, the liberals have been utterly ineffective at combating the rise of fascism.
It was not until what, about 12 to 6 ish months ago that finally, you could actually tell a liberal that Trump and the Republicans /are fascists/ without a bunch of hoity toity himming and hawing about tone policing and catastrophizing accusations.
A sad, sad joke.
We are a historically ignorant country, still high on our own supply of American Exceptionalism, unable to grasp that It Can In Fact Happen Here.
We ruled by geriatric politicians who have not been able to connect with the actual politics or material concerns of anyone under the age of 40 in a way that would effectively improve their lives. The mechanics of our political system are ossified and incapable of being changed to even /allow/ for changing into a system that would allow for more effective representation of the many, many poor. We will never have ranked choice voting on a large scale, nor reform to the electoral college, nothing like that. Not that those things would even work in a society where over 50% of possible voters have the literacy level of 7th graders.
We are ruled by corporate overlords who do not give a functional damn about any social justice issues and only feign it as a brand and marketing strategy to lull those who might otherwise actually do something useful to address those issues in society into inaction, as they can pay for the conspicuous consumption of media and more animal friendly foods or eco friendly cars or whatever to allow them to /feel/ like they are helping to solve the problem, when in reality they are just continuing to fund it.
I hope I am wrong and some actual good change will happen. But I do not think it likely at this point.