Decompiling Oppression #135
Sam McVeety
With everything going on, I wanted to spend this week doing a check-in of sorts, on the state of things. I'm realizing that the practices of resilience that we will need (especially) over the next four years are something I can mirror in this writing space as well, with repetition and reinforcement alongside growth and refinement. Just as resilience, sense-making, and self-care aren't isolated events, but rather, practices; so too is writing about them. We are living through difficult times. Knowing that they are difficult doesn't necessarily make them easier, but there is power in knowing that we are reckoning with these times together.
How am I doing these days? There are a lot of things that are hard to make sense of. At a fundamental level, there's a lot of sadness: that this is the way that people with tremendous power are choosing to conduct themselves, when there are so many other ways of being that they could choose. Within this disappointment, though, there is a recurring theme that I do find bothersome, which is the idea that the administration is somehow outsmarting everyone.
I see there being a subtle but crucial difference here: what we are seeing is not a display of intelligence, but rather a willingness to deploy a set of sociopathic behaviors (embracing white supremacist ideology, attacking the very nature of factuality) in a way that many others would refuse to do. Yes, these behaviors are a (social) technology of sorts, and yes, there is an aspect of this that we could deem innovative: going where few would dare to go. Like other technologies, though, just because something exists doesn't mean that it should be used. (The example that keeps coming back to me is the colonization of the Americas: enabled by the moral flexibility to countenance genocide.)
In saying the above, I don't mean to minimize the present risk by adopting some kind of moral high ground and philosophizing away. On the contrary, my intention is instead to be clear-eyed about the nature of the threat we are facing. At worst, there is something self-defeating in building up the opposition as this superintelligent adversary, rather than a morally bankrupt one. I say this because we've seen this authoritarian playbook before. If it were a strictly superior social technology, the historical record would be obvious. What history instead tells us: it is not a question of whether regimes will crumble, but rather when, and how we might hasten that.
Perhaps it's the optimist in me, but I do see that we are on an unavoidable path for a collision between identity and reality. If we look at the circumstances leading up to the 2024 election, it's inarguable that economic malaise was a significant contributor to the results. When people feel they are getting a raw deal, trying to tell them otherwise (sloganizing!) has clear limits. Here in 2025, we have all the makings of an economic disaster on our hands, one where the consequences to huge swaths of the country will be unavoidable. It's the same for entitlement programs: it is one thing to rail against social security and Medicaid while simultaneously benefiting from them; it is another to have those benefits actually cease.
At the same time, while we're doing this organizing and sensemaking, there are deeply harmful things happening now. The administration is carrying out attacks on immigrant communities across the country (yes, likely as a plan to scapegoat the aforementioned crash), targeting specific communities in an effort to silence dissent and instill compliance through fear. WAISN and other groups exist for moments like these, and have been laying the groundwork to fight back at all levels of society. The same people attacking immigrants are continuing their attacks on trans folks (and youth in particular).
While we are blocking what we can, now is also the time to build. One reader recently joined a mutual aid organization; another is attending a local civic group. Now is the time to turn towards each other, and recognize the connections that sustain us. Here in Seattle, we are looking forward to our annual Passover seder dinner, something that we enjoyed so much that we started a regular series of community gatherings in a similar tradition. The hardest part is just getting started: if you are having trouble figuring out how to take action right now, ask a friend to co-host; ask another friend to coach you through your reservations and doubts.
These are hard times. The way we'll get through them is through each other.
Here are this week's invitations:
Personal: What are you doing to care for yourself?
Communal: What are you doing to care for others?
Solidarity: Support WAISN, Gender Justice League, and Lavender Rights Project and their work to protect and empower threatened communities.
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