(18/18) I don't quite know the way forward, but I think there is a way, despite all the exhaustion and apathy, to still pull ourselves back from this #coup that #ElonMusk and #Trump are carrying out. I think there's still a way forward for us that doesn't end in #fascism. But I think we're going to have to deliberately and radically commit ourselves to care in a way that we haven't before. I don't quite know what that looks like. I think it is going to have to be something very new, something that builds on previous #leftist movements and #activist work but that transcends it. Not knowing what that will be is both exciting, because it's an opportunity to succeed where we might have fallen short in the past, and scary, because it's unknown and the future is uncertain.

All I know is that we have to try.

#Solidarity!

(17/?) I'm not quite sure what else I need at this point, but I would encourage anyone looking to plug into #activism against rising #fascism right now to think both about what you can contribute and about your needs. This is a fight against #Trump and #ElonMusk and their #coup attempt, but this is also a fight against #oppression that has been going on in the US for far longer than Trump and Musk and their ilk. We need to build a #left that is sustainable, that can care for people, and that offer alternatives to the #fascist dystopia we unfortunately seem to be entering. There are lessons we can learn from the fight against the previous Trump administration.

We also have to meet people where they are. If we're #BurntOut and exhausted, lecturing us to care won't change that. We have to accept that as part of our organizing and build that into our work.

(16/?) Another thing I'm thinking about in terms of my needs around participating in #leftist #activism relates to a conversation I had a while ago with another #activist friend. The gist of the conversation was that a lot of activists don't work on issues that impact them materially and directly, so they don't see a direct benefit from their actions. For instance, this person was suggesting that rather than working on large-scale, abstract advocacy issues, activists would do better to organize tennants unions in their own apartment complexes or become involved in small but meaningful #community efforts. I think there's something to that, and it's a point I'm still pondering

(15/?) Another thing I need is for #leftist to start taking #covid19 seriously again. If you expect me to show up in the streets and risk my life again, the very least you can do is #WearAMask. Yes, I still might get #covid from the cops or #fascists or just random people who don't realize that #CovidIsNotOver, but comrades shouldn't be spreading #covid19 to each other. #BirdFlu is another #pandemic waiting to happen, and regular #flu is surging right now. "We keep us safe" can't just be a nice protest chant. We have to actually do things to help keep each other safe. The #left has been failing here for years now, but we can start taking little actions to protect each other again

(14/?) What I also needed while doing #leftist #activism during the first #Trump term was #EmotionalLabor. I needed cheerleaders. I needed people who could support me emotionally and provide validation and encouragement. I was surrounded by people who were constantly telling me I wasn't enough--that whatever I was doing, it wasn't radical enough or leftist enough or effective enough. I watched people who had been in the #progressive movement for longer than I'd been alive get driven out and treated like garbage over petty infighting. I needed people who would accept and care for me, exactly as I was, without demanding I be something else. I needed people who I could trust. I needed to not feel so alone.

If you know an #activist on the #left right now, offer to listen, deeply listen, to what they're going through. Be a space of affirmation for them. It might also help

(13/?) So with all that in mind--with my history of #leftist #activism and the resulting #trauma from it, as well as the general state of #precarity of life in the US and the sense that protests aren't really effective--I'm asking myself what I need to effectively resist #Trump & #Musk's #coup and #fascist oppression. What do I need to be effective and do the work required sustainably? Just because I know what I might need doesn't mean I'll get it, but understanding my own needs feels like a start.

What I needed while doing #leftist #activism during the first Trump term was care. I needed someone to buy groceries and cook and clean and do what #Marxists call reproductive labor for me. I needed someone to take care of my basic needs.

If you know someone who is doing #activism right now, ask them what they need, and one thing you might offer is to cook a meal for them or do chores for them. It might help

(12/?) I was talking with a friend about some of these issues, and she also pointed out to me that part of why #activists are so exhausted is that we've been protesting, to the point of risking our reputations, jobs, health, and even lives, for a long time and haven't seen any change. The #BlackLivesMatter uprisings were quashed and Biden increased police department funding. The backlash to the protests calling for a #CeasefireInGaza has been swift and punitive. A lot of people feel like protesting isn't effective, and that's a conversation that's been happening on the #left for a while now. A lot of people are looking for other ways to foster change

(11/?) As to how we allow for that #rest on the #left and try to take care of our #activists so we don't #BurnOut, I don't have easy answers. I think #MutualAid needs to be part of the answer, but I don't think it's the whole answer. I think consciously and authentically committing ourselves to #care and #compassion is part of the answer, but I don't think it's the whole answer. I think building movements where people can safely ask for what they need and authentically be themselves is part of the answer, but it's not the whole answer. I think the whole answer is, perhaps, something we haven't tried yet, something we haven't quite hit on. If we could find it, though, I think it would be very powerful. And I think trying is worth it. I think we must try because the consequences of not trying -- #fascism, a #coup, #oppression -- are too high for us not to try

(10/) We also need to stop thinking of this fight as "the next 4 years." I'm already seeing so many people talk about #Trump and the #fascists in the context of a presidential term. That was a mistake that #leftists and #progressives made last time, and it absolutely contributed to the #BurnOut and #trauma that I and many other #activists experienced. You can give a lot in 4 years, if you expect to be able to rest after. Four years is a long time, but many #activist groups treated the first #Trump administration like a sprint--we were going to give a lot of energy for a relatively short amount of time and then we could stop. A lot of us gave as much as we did because we hoped that after 4 years, it would be enough. We didn't pace ourselves. We didn't take a more long-term mindset. If we're thinking long-term, then perhaps we can better allow for #rest

(9/?) Now that I'm aware of this fight-flight/black-white mindset, some of the #leftist infighting I've experienced makes sense. If we're all scared and on edge, we're going to see threats even in places where they aren't, and it's going to be harder to connect with each other with compassion and empathy. Yes, some of this infighting can probably be attributed to psy ops, but let's not do the right's work for it. For this go-around with #Trump, we need to figure out how to create communities and organizational cultures that foster a sense of safety and trust between each other, where we can let down the constant scanning for threats. I don't know how we do this, exactly, but I think it's something we need to be consciously aware of, and there's a lot of deep psychological and emotional work that needs to be done to foster this real sense of community

(8/?) First, I think we have to understand why things went so wrong for so many #leftist groups in the past and why so many movements that opposed the first #Trump administration weren't sustainable.

I think that's a combination of the toxic culture and of the mindset of many of these groups.

And there's something about that toxic culture. I didn't notice it at the time, but after a 4-year break from Trump, I can see it now more clearly. It's fear. It's fight-or-flight. It's my brain switching into a kind of black-and-white survival mode where I am now assessing everyone, everywhere as potential enemies or friends. I have been very quick to judge people since the inauguration, and I feel like I'm constantly scanning everyone for signs of a potential threat.

I can't be the only one who feels this way

(7/?) So to recap so far: People in the US aren't rising up en masse because we are living against the backdrop of an on-going #covid19 #pandemic that is harming our health, committed activists have been #traumatized and #BurntOut by their so-called "comrades" and #leftist groups uncommitted to care, and in general, people in the US tend to exist in a state of precarity to begin with.

Those are, to me, the big reasons why people aren't flooding the streets to stop #Musk's #coup or #Trump's blatant #unconstitutional overreaches. And of course, this is what the #fascists want. They want us tired and burnt out and precarious so that we will let them have their way, and they know full well that once they consolidate power, they will keep us even more traumatized, burnt out, and precarious as they continue to oppress and exploit us for their own gain. What do we do about this?

(6/?) And I am coming at this from a place with a lot of #privilege. I have a job that pays me enough to live decently (until inflation catches up to me and #Trump crashes the #economy). I'm educated. I'm white. I am looking for something to plug into (this is not the time or place to try to sell me on your group or whatever you're doing though and if you try, you're missing the point of this thread and I will block you). I do have little things, here and there, that I could give, even now after all the exhaustion and #trauma. There are a lot of people who are stretched even thinner than me, people who don't have the privilege that I have.

A lot of people in the US were already overwhelmed with the demands of daily life even before Trump came into office

(5/?) At this point, I am only interested in mobilizing with a group able to acknowledge and work with this kind of #trauma that so many #activists on the #left have experienced. And I haven't really found groups that can hold space for that kind of experience. I don't know how we build the kinds of groups needed to hold that space, and ironically, I am too tired and traumatized to try to organize such a group. But I do know that even after a 4-year break from #Trump, I still find a lot of #activism to be triggering.

Also, like many people in the US, I don't have much of a support system. There aren't really people in my life I can rely on. So whatever #activist groups I might be part of, I'm giving to them on top of trying to take care of myself and work a full-time job and take care of people in my life who need me.

We're all stretched too thin already, is what I'm saying

(4/?) After I departed the #toxic #leftist #activist group, I floated around to other groups and saw, perhaps less outright toxicity and infighting, but similar cycles of groups using people up, burning people out, and then replacing them with new people.

This is not only an unsustainable organizing model, but it's cruel. It is mirroring the #disposability mindset of #capitalism in which people have no inherent worth but are instead only valuable in what they can produce. It is not a model that values #care, #compassion, or #community. And yet I see it over and over and over again in so many groups that claim to be on the #left or #progressive.

If you want to know why people are tired, it's because we're past the point of #BurnOut. I wasn't burned out when I stopped doing #activism--I was #traumatized. I had burned out and kept going until I physically could not and I'm still recovering.

(3/?) What other reasons are people too tired to rise up and resist a #coup? For me, personally, it's the #trauma I'm still coping with from the first #Trump administration. Specifically, for me, the trauma that hurt the most wasn't the pain inflicted upon people by the #fascists. I expected that. The pain that cut so deep it created a wound that won't heal came from the #left. It came from the cutthroat infighting between so-called "comrades" and #leftists. It came from "I'm more left than you" posturing, accusing everyone who didn't exactly agree with them of being cops, and being ready, at a moment's notice, to ostracize and harass anyone they didn't like. There was a lot of toxicity in the left during the first Trump admin, and I ended up leaving an #activist group I'd literally given my blood, sweat, and tears to because it felt like an abusive relationship.

(2/?) So, why are people in the US too tired to protest the hostile takover of our government by a manbaby billionaire?

I'd like to state the obvious and point out that #covid19 is still a pandemic. Most people in the US have, on average, had about 3-4 #covid infections at this point. Covid can leave people with debilitating fatigue for months or even years after the initial infection. It can leave people with brain fog, chronic coughs, depression, autoimmune disorders, and a host of other maladies. Even if some people don't realize they have #LongCovid or don't have symptoms serious enough to warrant a #longhaul diagnosis, those infections add up. People are getting sick more frequently and the effects of these illnesses are adding up. People are physically tired.

I don't think that's the only explanation, but it's the backdrop under which everything else is happening.

(1/?) The common answer to "Why aren't more people in the US protesting?" is that everyone is tired. I can relate to this. After being radicalized by #OccupyWallStreet, fighting the first #Trump administration, and then attempting to survive the on-going #covid19 #pandemic, I am exhausted. I want to dig deeper into this exhaustion, though, because so often, the rejoiner I hear to "People in the US are tired" is very dismissive and unhelpful. The response usually berates these hoards of tired people for being tired and expects some combination of #shame and #guilt and #horror at the #coup taking place under Trump and #Musk to rouse them. It's an understandable but ineffective response, and if we want to be effective at building a better world and opposing #fascism, we're going to have to take a different approach.