aegipan-omnicorn:

inthedayglo:

aegipan-omnicorn:

pleaseletthisjimbetaken:

sassy-in-glasses:

the-gneech:

jackthevulture:

polyglotplatypus:

It’s like watching a car repeatedly drive straight into a wall. It’s unexplainable, it looks like it hurts a lot, but ultimately it ends up being darkly, ironically funny.

From my personal experience being an American on tumblr is like being the person in the BACK of the car praying that the person driving will STOP ramming into the wall.

A lot of us know this shit is stupid and we’re looking out the window like “LOOK THOSE OTHER CARS ARE DRIVING DOWN THE ROAD LETS BE LIKE THEM”

But the driver is like “FUCK YOU! BUILT FORD TOUGH! USA USA USA DONT LIKE IT, GET OUT!” but the doors are locked and the car is now smoking and threatening to catch fire.

Reblogging for the followup comment! ‘cos that’s exactly what it’s like.

who the fuck is in the driver’s seat

Last year, sometime (I think?), I heard an interview with Margaret Atwood on the BBC’s “HARDtalk,” (On the radio) about her writing – particularly her novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” when the adaptation had just started airing on Hulu.

And she said something that chilled me: she said that the extremists don’t need to be in the majority in order to take control of a society… they just have to be a large enough minority…. And that threshold is about 30%…. Which is just about Trump’s approval rating.

So, expanding on @jackthevulture‘s analogy: it’s like there are seven passengers in the back of a minivan, pleading for our lives, while three people in the front maintain control of the vehicle – With one of them behind the wheel, and the other two collaborating to beat up any of the passengers who try to get out of the back seat and take control of the wheel or the emergency break.

(Damn, this analogy is starting to sound like a Russian Psy-Op post. I swear it’s not, though)

To answer @sassy-in-glasses’s question: My guess is the three drivers are the Christian Fundamentalists (At least, since Ronald Reagan), Mega-Corporations (especially the fossil fuel industries, and all the associated industries that are connected to them – like car manufacturers, and the military), and White Supremisits.

(To make this not like a Russian Psy-Op post, I’m going to add to this analogy to suggest a way out: We have screwdrivers, and the minivan has to slow down each time it backs up to ram into the wall again.  We can take those opportunities to dismantle the vehicle from the inside –– take the locked doors off their hinges, and climb out through the trunk in the back, if we have to).

Yes to this analogy, for the most part–but I’d add that the process is slow and infuriating regardless of screwdrivers, because screwdrivers are slow, even though there are seven of us, and we’re still not the ones driving into the car and we’re sort of crammed in here without a lot of room to manoeuvre, and even though the van slows down a bit when it backs up, it accelerates really freaking fast. So we are all getting whiplash on top of the fact that we can’t work anywhere near as fast as the car moves, which means our progress is slow and slightly punch-drunk and we’re exhausted and seasick on top of it. Which, unfortunately, means that even if we refuse to give up, the change we’re working toward just ain’t gonna happen any time soon, even if it’s just taking the doors off their hinges (which… is also more difficult when they’re closed and locked. Sorry, but it just is).

It’s not that we’re not trying, but literally everything that can be stacked against us is–and the drivers are higher than kites, to boot.

It ain’t a pretty picture.

It sure ain’t. But  I’m doing my damnedest treading water, trying not to drown in despair, here… ‘Cause if we do that, it’ll get really ugly.

…Like election day, 2016 squared, ugly.

That. “Elbow Room” problem you point out is why Intersectionality matters so much.  We need to coordinate our efforts and work in sync, rather than trying to elbow each other out of the way.

(This analogy is growing even more awkward than an overcrowded minivan)