Unauthoritative Pronouncements

This isn’t always a “tech” blog, but it’s not always a personal blog. I might as well put a marker here for the cornucopia of negative emotions I’ve been living with since Tuesday night. I keep trying not to think about the many ways in which this presidency will definitely, absolutely be bad, but I’d be lying if I said those intrusive thoughts weren’t constantly percolating up.

I don’t have it in me to try and digest why people could have faith in this man, and the people he surrounds himself with. What short, convenient memories some of us have.

What I do have it in me to do is to keep living life. As a gay man, I’m both historically, and personally familiar with the way that government can be manipulated to do harm, and how we need to find it in ourselves to keep going.

In 2008 —when we were all full of hope and change— my fellow Californians were convinced that marriage was under threat and passed Proposition 8 to amend the state constitution with “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

There was no marriage on my personal calendar, but the Yes on 8 campaign had run some vile homophobic ads in the lead up to the 2008 election, and I found out people held some very homophobic views about me, whether they thought they did or not. I made the mistake of looking at the list of Prop 8 donors and a coworker was on it. I don’t recommend doing that.

I was a guest on a movie podcast where I picked Enchanted to talk about, and the host turned around on twitter a few weeks later to talk about his strict Christian views on marriage, but he didn’t have a problem with me. A ton of other weird interactions, and my fear over the possibility of those interactions, can be inserted here.

This year Proposition 3 was on the ballot which changed the language in the California constitution to enshrine same sex marriage in the event Trump’s Supreme Court undoes Obergefell as they undid Roe with the Dobbs decision. Proposition 3 lacked the disgusting campaign of Yes on 8, and really just sailed right on to success. Not all of California’s votes are counted yet, but a large majority of voters changed their minds from one extreme to the other. A strange, but encouraging, bookend to 2008.

There were other California propositions that didn’t fare so well on the ballot, and I won’t get into those here, because our proposition system is so obviously a shit way to pass important stuff.

The point is that nothing is forever. That cuts both ways, obviously. A second Trump presidency will be much worse, and awful things will be passed into law, or protections and regulations overturned by his appointed judges. None of these people doing these terrible things will be immortal, and nothing they put in place can last forever any more than what they wish to tear down.

That’s not to be callous or pretend we’ll just flip the legislature in the midterms for some Classic American Divided Government, or some of these voters will pick the other party that’s not in power to express their dissatisfaction in a Classic American Send a Message to Washington maneuver as possibly occurred Tuesday. It will take proactive work, but it’s important to underscore that nothing is eternal through some self-sustaining power.

I have to keep reminding myself of that, and I’m writing it here, to sit along my critiques of the Apple TV, AI, Siri responses, and the general life I wish to preserve for myself.

I am fortunate in that way, and fortunate to live in California for some of the protections my state can afford me. Not everyone has that same privilege, of course, but it would really be a waste to throw it away and flog myself. None of us can be a heatsink for all the pain people will feel. However, we can try to radiate perseverance in defiance of an oppressive regime to help others persevere too.