I had occasion to mention Afterwar yesterday. Now, after years and indictments, “serious” pundits are finally forced into admitting that just maybe, just perhaps that orange blivet didn’t merely commit a lightly treasonous, entirely forgivable oopsie but set out and worked hard to install himself as a fascist dictator. All those folks who told me I was being “alarmist”, who mocked me (and others) for screaming about the danger, have finally been given evidence even they can’t ignore. Of course, many are ignoring it, and even more are both-sidesing everything like the good little bootlickers they are.
I have rarely felt more like a Cassandra, and that’s saying something. I would have loved to be wrong, but I wasn’t. Relentlessly gaslit and mocked, belittled when not outright ignored, sure, but I was not wrong. I even wrote a whole-ass book about the danger the demagogue and his little helpers represent, and…nobody listened.
Everything that could go wrong did during the publication of that book, too; maybe that’s why it was so ignored. It got to the point that I was expecting the shipments of actual physical copies to burst into flame on an oceangoing transport, sinking the whole thing to the bottom. I absolutely would not have been surprised. Still, when Afterwar finally managed to stagger out into the world and then made not a dent, I suppose I can be forgiven a little bit of ill temper now.
Because I was fucking right. So were all the other people who warned about That Fucking Orange Guy and All His Enablers. We were mocked, degraded, threatened, ignored. But we were goddamn right, and had been for years upon years.
Cold comfort.
To be absolutely fair, I have gotten a few letters about the book over the years, mostly from those who were similarly harassed or ignored. I often say that if a story helps even one person it’s worth all the agony, and of course the universe has decided to test me upon that assumption in the most blatant way possible.
I am proud to report I still believe it to be true, despite the bruises upon my soul.
At least one person wrote to take me to task about the Burning of the South in the first third of the book, so I should go on record with pointing out that I don’t think that’s what should happen. I do think that if matters escalate to a second American civil war (a declared one, instead of the semi-fig-leafed insurgency the Republicans and their Christofascist allies have been waging since the Reagan administration), an updated version of Sherman’s march is an overwhelming possibility. Just because I can extrapolate the likelihood doesn’t mean I advocate for it.
I wish more people were capable of making that distinction, or at least of refraining from disingenuously conflating me with fictional characters. But just as it’s difficult to get someone to understand a concept if their salary depends on them not understanding it, it is near-impossible to induce emotional or intellectual honesty in someone who achieves psychological relief by abusing and harassing artists.
Maybe I should just be thankful that the wheels of justice appear to be grinding at any speed at all. But I will not be satisfied until actual consequences are applied to those violent, hateful malefactors, from their spray-tanned demagogue through his legislative and lawyer-flavored enablers, all the way down to their foot soldiers. Which will probably never happen, because America believes in coddling racist white men, especially if they’re rich–or useful to the rich.
Still, a girl can dream. An artist can articulate realities others believe impossible or cannot even consider, and that’s the first step towards progress.
I suppose it will have to be enough.