Mourning For America’s Soul – and fearing for the world

Everything, and I mean everything, we write is political, and it’s never a pleasure when what we write is prescient, when dystopia becomes reality, when fictional and non-fictional warnings are ignored.

And so it has come to pass, although not every vote has yet been counted, that America has decided to vote down its own freedoms, to make a criminal its leader, to deprive women and minorities of their basic rights.

This is no longer about my writerly doubts, but about existential doubts, full stop. I cannot comprehend, no matter how coerced, misled or lied to the American populace has been, that it would decide that white totalitarianism is the best for it and, by implication, for the world.

There is the real possibility now that the world will lie in ruins in fewer than four years, that existing conflicts will escalate to such a level that atomic weapons will be deployed. And before the world is destroyed, that any dissenting voices will be extinguished without a second thought, while leaders of any countries other than the US, Russia, and China will cower under the cosh of those three.

Those not living in America may think they’ll just be able to carry on with their lives as if nothing has essentially changed, but that’s untrue. If we don’t carry on fighting fascism, if we don’t keep fighting racism, misogyny, and discrimination, they will flood over every border into every country, into the pores of every living being.

What’s the point, you might say, in fighting if the world will end within the next four years anyway? The point is to try, somehow, to stop the acpocalypse, to keep standing up, not just for our own freedoms, but for the freedoms of everyone.