After penning the best article on the RNC, Laurie Penny has taken her Red Pen of Justice to the DNC, where she reports on the state of American progressivism in the balance, where the best we can hope for is “a future slightly less terrifying than Trump nation.”
More than anything, Penny’s piece nails the ambivalence of hating Trump and all he stands for and also feeling the heartbreak of having lost out the chance to finally have someone to vote for, rather than against. It’s a powerfully captured emotion.
The Democratic Party, like the British Labour Party, has decided in advance what is politically possible- but they may have made a terrible mistake. In the face of the collapse of the centre-left consensus, the right is terrifying in its grudging unity, and the left is terrifying in its disarray. Consider that after some initial brouhaha, the Republicans cheered on cue as their party was taken over by a giant evil baby. This is because the right runs on fear and is generally good at being told what to do. Meanwhile, Democrats who didn’t get the candidate they wanted were all but throwing punches on the convention floor. When you actually care about the world not sliding into fascism, compromise doesn’t hurt any less. It hurts more.
There’s a bad moon rising, the best lack all conviction and the worst have a million branded baseball caps and greasy little fingers grasping for the nuclear button. Good luck to us all.
Bad Moon Rising
[Laurie Penny/Medium]