I don’t know what comes next. I don’t know what to expect. It’s serious. It’s real this time. Prepare for the worst-case scenarios and do not assume anything. A lot has been said about how this administration plans to handle queer rights. It could mean anything. No level of institutional violence against trans people is off the table as of now. Medications can be banned, non-conformity with assigned roles can be criminalized, conversion therapy can be accepted as widespread policy. I don’t know. The end result is it’s not good. Whatever this change in power means for us, it’s not good. I don’t want to downplay the seriousness of what’s at stake here.
That being said, as escape and resistance efforts materialize, this community will support them. We will persevere as queer people have always had to. When the systems fail us, we rely on each other. Grassroots efforts will come together in the coming weeks and months. I encourage people to do what they think is right and to do what they think will keep themselves and their families safe. We have to stay together and we have to love and protect each other. No matter what happens. Unity and queer power doesn’t stop now. Today is a day to mourn the loss of a safe world for so many queer people. Tomorrow, we should begin to steel ourselves for resistance.
I hope the best for everyone. This community is here to support us all as this unfolds. I’m so sorry. I wish there was more I could say or do. The waves of anxiety and fear have been washing over me for the past couple of hours. Let’s mourn together, I guess. And get ready for what comes tomorrow.
There’s some crisis lines in the sidebar I encourage anyone to make use of if you’re unsafe right now. Those are all explicitly trans affirming support lines.
No it wasn’t, it was a republic.
No, it was a federal presidential constitutional republic which is a kind of democracy. The way a beagle is a kind of dog. Our democracy still intact until the inauguration at least.
So Bush winning in 2000 was a democracy, even though the popular vote was ultimately not a deciding factor? If a popular vote doesn’t determine if something happens, it cannot be a democracy.
Our democracy is flawed because of its flawed political institutions such as the electoral college that enables minority rule. What you’re describing is know as direct democracy which is a kind of democracy.
Even though we have representatives who vote on our behave that is also still democracy. Representatives are an innovation that allow democracies to scale to hundreds of millions of people.
Disproportionate representation to small states however, is another example of a flaw in our democracy that causes it to favor minority rule. This favoring of minority rule is also part how we got here. We needed record breaking turnout to correct for this and we the people did not deliver that.