The opposite of fascism: Living well and fighting back in a time of terrors; The Ink, March 19, 2025

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, The Ink; The opposite of fascism

Living well and fighting back in a time of terrors

"It’s tempting to think that the opposite of authoritarianism, of this nightmare we are living through, is an opposite politics.

And, indeed, the ongoing hijacking of the United States by broligarchs and MAGA minions requires a ferocious political response.

But everyone I talk to is drained by this responding, drained by the burden of constant vigilance, drained by the always-on coup, drained by the ping-ping-ping of executive actions and court orders and protests and town halls and threats and disappearances.

And often people confess guilt.

Guilt for doing anything but this civic duty they feel.

Guilt for having a good time out of doors.

Guilt for being with friends.

Guilt for saying they are doing fine, thank you, in fact great, actually, if they’re being honest, except for the whole world thing.

I want to suggest to you that you don’t need to feel this guilt. The best revenge against these grifters and bigots and billionaires and bullies is to live well, richly, together.

The best revenge is to refuse their values. To embody the kind of living — free, colorful, open — they want to snuff out. 

So when they dehumanize, you humanize.

When they try to fracture and divide people, you connect with people.

When they try to curtail the freedom to associate, you gather.

When they try to make it harder to speak your mind, you find your voice.

When they try to make you cynical, you double down on hope.

When they try to drown you in reacting to each little thing, you remember the far-off “beautiful tomorrow” you are fighting for.

When they try to consume you night and day, you reserve time for your garden or cooking or the feeling of your kid’s breath on your cheek as you cuddle.

They want all of all of us, and they want to saturate our beings only for them and their purposes — as fodder for their machines. They want politics to eat your dreams.

And so living well, and living in community, and living with others, and taking care of your people, and even not your people, is not just self-care in order to keep fighting. That was the 2016 idea. It is actually inseparable from resisting their big project.

Because having, and nurturing, in your life a sphere for joy and connection and community and love and food and music and human difference and living and letting live is everything they are not and is everything they are trying to take away.

Be what scares them. Live lives in colors their eyes can’t even see. Cook food they want to deport. Test the fire code with your parties. Form a scene that meets every Wednesday. Call someone you haven’t in a while. Fight with a smile. Fail and come back. Be weird. Be welcoming. Kiss converts. Refuse despair. Be disobedient. Laugh loudly. Hide someone. Call out. Root down.

They are waging a war on living. The more fully you live, the harder their job will be."

Something is not right; Washington Post, May 26, 2017

Ruth Marcus, Washington Post; Something is not right

"In the middle of one night

Miss Clavel turned on the light

And said, “Something is not right!”

— “Madeline,” by Ludwig Bemelmans, 1939...

Something is really not right when all this is done to help pay for trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the richest Americans. When it is built on an edifice of fairy-tale growth projections exacerbated by fraudulent accounting, double-counting savings from this supposed growth.

We are all Miss Clavel now, or should be."

30 Years After Explosion, Challenger Engineer Still Blames Himself; NPR, 1/28/16

Howard Berkes, NPR; 30 Years After Explosion, Challenger Engineer Still Blames Himself:

"The space shuttle program had an ambitious launch schedule that year and NASA wanted to show it could launch regularly and reliably. President Ronald Reagan was also set to deliver the State of the Union address that evening and reportedly planned to tout the Challenger launch.

Whatever the reason, Ebeling says it didn't justify the risk.

"There was more than enough [NASA officials and Thiokol managers] there to say, 'Hey, let's give it another day or two,' " Ebeling recalls. "But no one did."

Ebeling retired soon after Challenger. He suffered deep depression and has never been able to lift the burden of guilt. In 1986, as he watched that haunting image again on a television screen, he said, "I could have done more. I should have done more."

He says the same thing today, sitting in a big easy chair in the same living room, his eyes watery and his face grave. The data he and his fellow engineers presented, and their persistent and sometimes angry arguments, weren't enough to sway Thiokol managers and NASA officials. Ebeling concludes he was inadequate. He didn't argue the data well enough."