by 
I’m writing this in the days after the election, processing it with more dismay than shock. The outcome felt inevitable for months but I held a small hope that voters would reject him a second time. The problems people fear won’t disappear on their own. And the things I fear aren’t guaranteed to come true. For now, I will grieve for all the futures that seem even further away than before.
There’s a question I turn over in my brain all the time. It’s only a coincidence that I’m writing about it this week. How do we disrupt things that always seem to be getting worse? The classic example of why we can’t, of course, is the frog in a pot of water. Drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, the saying goes, and it’ll jump out. Put the frog in a pot of cold water, heat it up, and the poor kid will boil alive.
Things aren’t getting worse solely because of Trump, right? We all understand that on some level. It often feels like the systems around us are eating themselves. How can people buy enough to keep the economy afloat when everything has gotten so expensive? How can we turn back the effects of climate change when oil-rich nations rush to pump out more? How can we filter out the plastic in our bodies when the industry pours millions into keeping them legal? It seems like we spend so much time fighting to stay exactly where we’ve been. At times it feels like we’re floating in a pot of water set to boil.
On Monday, I read a reminder that fascism isn’t new to this country. In 2022, Jamelle Bouie wrote about the americans who lived in Jim Crow-era united states. That was an authoritarian regime that oppressed its own citizens for more than a century. He writes, “close to three generations of American elites lived with and largely accepted the existence of a political system that made a mockery of American ideals of self-government and the rule of law. […] [F]or most of this country’s history, America’s democratic institutions and procedures and ideals existed alongside forms of exclusion, domination and authoritarianism.”
Average people around the world are working to oppose fascism, exploitation, and oppression. We have our strategies to make the world a better place. But there are also people working very hard to keep that from happening. For people who profit off this distress and misery, how are they organizing?
strategies of oppression
Repeated declarations of scarcity. I see this in anti-immigrant statements like, “sorry, we’re full” or “I got mine, you get yours.” It’s in the belief that there isn’t enough for everyone. Only the people in charge get to decide how to ration the resources and priorities of the group.
Austerity during recessions and boom times. When the economy is not doing well, public services face cuts to their funding. When the economy is booming, decision-makers still threaten smaller budgets for essential services. The state that spends billions on a bomber funds services at the level they want to pay, not the level people need.
Blaming the most vulnerable. People with minimal power in a system receive blame for all the problems in that system. Anti-trans bigots see any moves of acceptance as hostility towards them. White people who see any person of color in a role as unqualified for that role.
Rigid defense of the status quo. Every desire to go back to the mythical way things were. Creating one-size-fits-all policies that work best for people in the dominant culture. Dragging one’s feet against inclusion or equity in a workplace.
These strategies keep us exactly where we are, or worse. What more can we do? We can’t stop at jumping ourselves out of this boiling pot. We should be asking ourselves and each other how we can tip it over. We can turn off the fire that threatens to cook us. We must imagine a world in which nobody has to ask if the water around them is getting warmer.
demanding new paths
Build yourself a network and keep it strong. I’ve seen a lot of people give this advice in the past few days so I’ll keep this one brief. I’ll add that these relationships must be bidirectional and cannot be transactional. They don’t work if everyone shows up only when they themselves need something.
Recognize the dangers of individualism. Individualism is a capitalist notion. If everyone is looking out for themselves, they say, then nobody has to look out for each other. This lie is convenient because one person alone can’t do much against an entire machine. As Angela Davis writes in Freedom is a Constant Struggle, “every change that has happened has come as a result of mass movements.”
Connect the dots. Like individualism, it’s hard to see the patterns beyond our own experience. Much of what people feel at the personal level are really systemic issues. I can’t buy a house because real estate is an investment generator before it is shelter. People die from preventable diseases because healthcare companies have shareholders. It’s tempting to view a threat to our safety and think “we’ll be okay.” The truth is, most people probably will. Who will stand up for the people who won’t be okay? Who will stand up for us if we don’t do it for each other?
Remove the need for people in power. What’s the point of having a civilization if the people inside it are dying? Nobody was offering an end to Israel’s genocide. Nobody wanted their people to have free healthcare. Why should people have power if they’re going to use it against us? The community care that’s happening all around the country is proof that we are all we have. We can outsource that. We can deprioritize it. It’s been happening for years. What will we do when we can’t afford those services anymore? Where does that path lead us?
the myths we feed
What is real about the world around us? What can we do to make real the world we want? In Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown writes this about the future: “The future is not an escapist place to occupy. All of it is the inevitable result of what we do today, the more we take it in our hands, imagine it as a place of justice and pleasure, the more the future knows we want it, and that we aren’t letting go.” The status quo exists because it’s easy. It continues because people with the power to change it leave it alone instead.
As Venice Williams begins in her poem (worth reading in full), “You are awakening to the same country you fell asleep to. The very same country. Pull yourself together.” The tale about the frog, of course, is another myth. Frogs have the good sense to leave the water before it gets too hot. What’s our excuse?
josh
my name is josh martinez. i have always loved trying to understand systems, and the systems that built those systems. i spend a lot of time thinking about how to get there from here.
i'm the founder and principal consultant at Future Emergent.
say hello: josh[at]bethefuture.space
