Since the Republicans passed the Big Beautiful Billionaire Bill on July 4th, I’ve tried writing a couple essays, but really, what to say? I abandoned them all, wandered away mid-paragraph, mid-thought, mid-devastating headline, mid ICE assault video, mid-Gaza bombing, too flummoxed and distraught to keep writing or hit save.
Oddly enough, I believe Lisa Murkowski, the last Republican Senator to capitulate on the Big Beautiful Bill, spoke for a lot of us when she told a reporter, “We are all afraid.”
So afraid was she of Trump and his goons, that after carving out exceptions for her own state—she knew how devastating the bill was—Murkowski voted yes, protecting Alaska (for now), while dealing a mighty blow to the rest of America. Maybe it’s the distance, the fact that there’s a big chunk of Canada between Alaska and the contingent USA, that fooled her into thinking it’s okay if it happens over there—the cuts to Medicaid, SNAP benefits, the National Weather Service, FEMA, the EPA—but not here. A selfish, small-minded position. An ignorant position, one that forgets that it takes all of us to defeat evil.
Which Republicans were not so cowardly? Or more specifically, which Republicans were slightly braver than they were afraid of the wrath of Donald J. Trump?
In the Senate: Rand Paul, Thom Tillis, and Susan Collins.
In the House: Thomas Massie of Kentucky. And Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
Thank you for your courage, for taking a stand, for putting your constituents and your country above the cruel and deluded despicableness of Dear Leader Trump.
Despite these five holdouts, who will of course pay dearly for their disloyalty, the Big Beautiful Billionaire bill passed. Trump got what he wanted. More money for his richy-rich friends - $4.3 trillion more to be exact. Enough to necessitate a $5 trillion increase to the debt ceiling, enough to make every other budget item look like pocket change, enough to bankrupt the country, but never mind about that.
Trump got $180 billion for his own militia! More masked ICE agents, more raids, more deportations, more swampy concentration camps! Alligator and python guards working for free! Take that Hitler! $180 billion. More than Russia’s entire military budget, but with the guns pointed inward, towards America, towards immigrants, towards brown people, black people, Muslims, queers, democrats, towards anyone who disagrees or dissents or does not kiss the fat, diapered ass of Heir Trump.
I had faith the bill would be defeated. At heart, I am an optimist and a believer in the good hearts of people. I believed that enough Republican senators would take a hard look in the mirror and in a quiet moment, face to face with their God and their conscience, would realize they could simply could not vote such a depraved bill into law. I was, of course, wrong. Home of the brave, Congress is not.
Back in November, when Trump got elected I was upset. I knew round two was going to be bad. And I like to think I’m well informed, and that being a writer of fiction I have a fairly robust imagination. But honestly, six months in, I could not have imagined so many of the things Trump and his acolytes have inflicted upon America and the world, nor the speed which they have done such damage.
The capitulation of the Supreme Court. The capitulation of Congress. The largest transfer of wealth from poor to uber-rich in the history of the United States of America, tabled and made law by cowering Republicans. I could not have imagined the kidnappings, the masked ICE agents in jeans and bullet proof vests, arresting brown people at Home Depot and Walmart. Shooting rubber bullets at protestors. Raiding construction sites and farms. I couldn’t imagine tanks rolling down US streets or soldiers on horseback swinging batons at citizens.
Alligator Alcatraz wasn’t on my radar in November. A tent city, a prison camp, built in ten days in the hot swamp of the Florida Everglades — where disappeared people are going to get sick. I did not foretell Alligator Alcatraz merch—my imagination was too dull, my heart too naive. And the families posing for pictures beneath the Alligator Alcatraz sign – I did not see them coming.
Back in November, I did not foretell tents built on the rubble of once houses, being bombed with impunity in what was once Palestine. I did not imagine the burning children. I did not foretell the “aid” distribution system devised by Israel and the United States to feed two million people they had intentionally starved. I did not imagine Donald Trump woohoo-ing about ethnically cleansing the Gaza strip, or his AI video of the Mediterranean Riviera. His huge, golden statue centering the town square, the gaudy hotels, the “world-people” on lounge chairs, running their manicured nails through bloody beach sand.
I did not foretell the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu nominating Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize. I did not believe that reality could be so corrupted. I did not believe that the sadistic, imbecilic horror story being told by Donald Trump would be taken up by so many pandering fools. The emperor has no clothes — could someone please tell him before he pisses himself again? Before he breaks into Gibberish, now America’s official language. His minions nod and smile, but really, who understands a word he says?
What’s next? Trump is a bully, a showman, the world’s latest honest-to-god dictator, inspired by reality tv and prone to comic book acts of cruelty. Will he strap James Comey to a table and run him over with a giant band saw? Will he dangle Jerome Powell over a vat of acid? Will he livestream dropping a nuke on Moscow or Kyiv or Ottawa?
Sometimes it feels like they’re winning. And yes things are definitely bad—worse than any of us could have imagined back in November, except for perhaps the scholars of fascism, those Yale Professors who packed up early and moved north to Toronto. But I believe this degree of depravity and abuse simply cannot be tolerated by we the world people.
I know that we the world people do not want to see farm workers running for their lives through half-picked strawberry fields. That we the world people do not want to see people plucked off the streets, tackled, cuffed, shoved into dark-windowed vans. That we the world people do not want to see people lose their healthcare or veterans begging on the streets or children going hungry or communities devastated by floods or tornadoes or fires left to fend for themselves.
I know we, the world people, do not like dictators. Or white supremacists. Or religious nuts praying for the End Times. We, the world people, do not like wars or genocides or rich men playing around with our lives. We the world people do not want our one and only home plundered, deforested, extracted, melted, polluted, heated up to the point of no return. We do not want the seas to rise or the storms to worsen or the water and air to get hotter and dirtier. We, the world’s people, do not wish to become victims of climate disasters.
There are eight billion humans on this planet, eight billion life-stories each as rich, complex, and important as the next. What are the universal truths, the things that bind us together, the things that a great majority of us can agree on? I think first of Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs. First air, food, water, shelter, our own bed, a place to sleep. Then safety, health, employment. Love and belonging. Esteem, and finally self-actualization. Not so, so much to ask.
Next, I think of James Baldwin.
“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”
I know we, the world people, love our kids. That we do not want to see any child starved or bombed or swept away in a flood. I’m pretty sure that’s something we can all agree on. Is Senator Murkowski a rare exception? Is her heart so small that it has only enough room for Alaskan children? Does she believe, like Elon, that empathy is the western world’s greatest weakness? Does she believe it’s every man/state/child for themselves? Does she have no faith in we the people? Is that why she’s so afraid?
I think of America’s poet laureate, Ada Limon and her poem Dead Stars.
“Look, we are not unspectacular things.
We’ve come this far, survived this much. What
would happen if we decided to survive more. To love harder?
What if we stood up with our synapses and flesh and said, No.
No, to the rising tides.
Stood for the many mute mouths of the sea, of the land."
What does it look like to love harder? I know it does not look like more ICE agents, increased NATO spending, world re-armament. It does not look like Senator Murkowski voting yes when everything in her screamed no. Loving harder does not look like Alligator Alcatraz or a drone or a missile or a bomb. I know it looks absolutely nothing like Donald J. Trump.
I think loving harder looks like determinedly choosing not to be afraid. This is where I’m at. Rejecting fear, reminding myself fear does not serve me, no matter how discouraged or afraid I feel. Senator Murkowski will go down in history as a coward. I do not wish to join her.
I think loving harder looks like courage. Like standing up and saying No More. I think loving harder looks like a great coming together, in the streets, in community, in country, in the world. It looks like a lot more people raising their voices and fighting for those rendered voiceless. It looks like less guns and more schools and hospitals. It looks like politicians serving the people rather than scaring them into submission. I think loving harder looks like protest and struggle and dancing. I believe it feels difficult, near impossible and that it also feels like joy.
I think loving harder looks like....please fill in the blank in the comments below.
Courage, love, and solidarity. Everyone, everywhere, all at once.
xoxo Joanne
I'm actually hoping you'll add what loving harder looks like to you. If we want a better, braver world we have to imagine it into existence. We have to write it down, get clear, then fight for it.
I’m trying!
I think loving harder means deliberately creating beauty… because the effort to make something beautiful can only come from a place of peace and joy.
I think loving harder means being brave and having hard conversations.
I think loving harder means sharing your column as widely as possible… a small effort to drown out the hate with compassion and intelligence.
Thank you for writing as you do… I live in Ottawa and imagine us crossing paths without knowing it and me feeling lighter for it.