Don’t traumatize your people

A little dark humor to start – click to see what cartoonist Nick Anderson of Daily Kos has to say about the presidential transition. Today the Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court threw out five challenges to the election in one decision. The nasty guy’s team has now lost 35 of these cases. Shortly after that Pennsylvania certified Joe Biden’s win. Nevada will certify soon. Biden has enough Electoral College votes. And that’s before Arizona and Wisconsin certify next week. I had mentioned that Carl Bernstein has identified 21 GOP senators who are contemptuous of the nasty guy. Investigative journalist Marcus Baram tweeted in response:

Every congressional reporter needs to track down these senators and persist in asking them a simple question: “Why are you so scared of President Trump that you can’t go public with your thoughts?” And the key thing is to keep asking that question, even after they bob and weave and avoid answering it. Follow up until they answer it.

Karla Monterroso tweeted about what it’s like to be sick with COVID. Her fever cycled up and down several times. She was hopeful every time it fell, then her hopes were crushed when the fever rose yet again. The disease also crushed her family. The rising fever broke her mother’s heart each time. Her mother argued to come take care of her, but doing so would be deadly. Her brother wanted a text when she awoke every day and when she slept extra hours he would worry whether she was still alive. When the fever finally left and didn’t come back she was too weak to care for herself.

You traumatize your people. And you hate it. The project of keeping you alive consumes you and them. And they can’t even be with you. Because the act of being with you could put them in the same position. It is maddening. So that’s my pitch. Do everything you can to keep from traumatizing your people. From breaking them and yourself so continuously that it gives you PTSD to just watch an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Do everything you can to keep them from traumatizing you. Stay home. Be safe.

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas tweeted another reason why I’ll be alone at Thanksgiving:

Another thing people don't realize is that even if you and your loved ones don't get COVID-19, even if no one you know does... even if you're that lucky… ...the surge will mean that once again *all other health care services will be overtaxed & many will be inaccessible.* More than 25 million people in this country have asthma. I'm one of them. Access to an ER can mean the difference between living and breathing, or a different outcome. But ERs are full. What about heart attacks? Strokes? Aneurysms? Gunshot wounds? Hell, even acute appendicitis? It's not just COVID-19. It will be the horror atop horror when you and your loved ones can't access any kind of health care. Please stay home.

A lot of the virus relief programs Congress enacted last May expire the day after Christmas. Have a happy holiday! As for another relief package, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted:

If you want to know why COVID relief is tied up in Congress, one key reason is that Republicans are demanding legal immunity for corporations so they can expose their workers to COVID without repercussions. Dems don’t want you to die for a check. That’s what we’re fighting over.

Joe Biden tweeted:

The election is over. It’s time to put aside the partisanship and the rhetoric designed to demonize one another. We have to come together.

Sarah Kendzior responded:

You know what would actually unite this country? An end to elite criminal impunity. I'm serious. This is a unifying issue. (Except for, of course, the criminal elites.) We're not only seeing the same crimes, we're seeing the *exact same criminals and enablers* getting away with them again and again due to our failed and corrupt institutions. Elite criminal impunity is truly a non-partisan crisis. No one wanted to see child rape traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell roam free; or the mass murdering Sackler family get a slap on the wrist. People want to be protected from their crimes. And we want the truth. Trump is a symptom of the broader disease of elite criminal impunity. The lines between corporate crime, organized crime, and state crime have blurred -- and ordinary Americans suffer as a result. There must be a gutting of endemic corruption for the US to truly move forward.

Jonathan Smucker wrote a book about political organizing on the left. He tweeted:

FDR famously said to the labor movement, "Make me do it." That's the job of our movements right now in relation to Biden and Dems in Congress. When you say, "They'll never do anything for us," what you're really saying is, "Our movements are too weak to make them deliver." Focus on our part of the equation, which is to build & wield the power of working people to push for change. How do we build collective power? - Join a people's organization - Contribute time & money - Learn organizing & campaigning skills that add to our collective capacity The Dem Establishment has more money and resources than us, but that's only part of why our movements aren't winning more. Another important part is that we're at the end of a 40-year period of decline of left infrastructure (e.g., unions & organizations). We have to rebuild.