I Do Not Consent

I Do Not Consent
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Last night was a tough night. My wife Kate described it as perpetually needing to wake from a bad dream. I experienced it more as a death in the family - I could distract myself for a time, but the thought of a Trump presidency kept coming back. And every time it did, I would get angrier.

Before Obama, I had never had a President that even remotely represented my views. Reagan (warmonger), Bush I (spook), Clinton (blue dog), Bush II (where do I begin). It just wasn't an available option. For most of my life, real change has been what happens in the streets, not the voting booth.

But then we got Obama. And everything seemed possible. A cool, smart, strong, black man as president. We got healthcare, GLBT rights, wars were ended, the environment was on the agenda, 14 million new jobs. Suddenly, it seemed like the march of history toward progress was inevitable. We were told the Obama coalition was unbeatable, that the coalition would be in power for generations - not because of passion or ideas necessarily, but because of demographics. And Hillary, our first woman President, would prove it.

Well, not exactly how it turned out.

But today I had an important realization. It's not that things are moving backward, per se; it's just reverting to how it always was. Yes, the arc of history is bending towards justice a little slower; yes, it's hard to reconcile the words "President" and "Trump"; yes, we don't live in the country we thought we did. But things are still moving forward, like they always have. It might take a little longer, it might look a little different, but still moving forward.

When I look back, many of the formative experiences and deepest friendships in my life have come from time spent organizing against apartheid at Brandeis, fighting police brutality with the October 22nd Coalition in San Francisco, protesting the IMF and World Bank with giant puppets in DC, fighting the power through the ferocity of bone-crunching rock with MC Justice, and protesting any number of gulf wars. This is how change happens. This is how we get things done.

In the U.S., government power is derived from the consent of the governed.

I do not consent to deporting 10 million people.
I do not consent to building a fucking wall.
I do not consent to ignoring climate change.
I do not consent to banning Muslims.
I do not consent to racism, misogyny, anti-semitism or xenophobia.
I do not consent to the multiple levels of bullshit about to be done in my name.

And so it begins...

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