Something Like This is What We Need

As a preface, I wrote this piece about a week ago, and sent it in to CommonDreams for submission. I don’t know if they’ve accepted or rejected it; it’s time to publish it here.

Trump has led us right to where we should be as a country. Joining most of the world in the dismay of the devastating but all-to-predictable election of Trump I figured his presidency would lead us to something like this. How and when I didn’t know.

“Something like this” is a woke society that is rebelling against oppression and the status quo. It should surprise nobody that Trump has led the economy into a combination of depression and recession, especially after tax-cuts for the wealthy and more recently stimulus money for large corporations instead of for people.

Something like this is a sustained nonviolent movement to end violence. Propelled by far too much state-sanctioned violence known as “police killings” people are now in the street and they’re in the street until tax dollars are reallocated to fund for people rather than oppress them (also known as “defunding the police”).

The logical conclusion upon the election of Trump was that his policies would allow us to transform bad policies into something better. Something like this is how that done. It takes a sustained nonviolent movement that has convinced several cities to end violent policy tactics, convinced universities to stop cooperation with local police departments, convinced other cities to disband the police and create a community-led public safety system, and renewed calls calls to abolish ICE.

A movement like this allows us to re-envision society and build something that ensures that tax dollars are spend representing the needs of the people rather than the oppression of the people. The only silver lining of a Trump presidency is a movement like this that can transform action into policy that represents that people.