They All Said in Unison

Hello RABBLE REVIEWER’s. I hope you’re doing well and enjoying your day. I also hope that you are enjoying the beverage you are drinking. Boy, that sure does look delicious. I may or may not be thirsty at the time of this writing. Take a big sip for me! Anyways. Right now, my team and I are finalizing our picks for our upcoming ninth issue. It’s exciting stuff. But when you’re reading a lot of works one after the other certain things begin to stick out and certain patterns begin to emerge. The first one is extremely minor, and it rarely impacts the prose in any meaningful way. It’s when writers use, “in unison,” to describe the collective action of a group of people. Usually when they're saying something. “Stop that!” they said in unison. I don’t like it. It isn’t grammatically wrong, it isn’t bad syntax, or bad sentence structure, it just feels like lazy shorthand. Suddenly the dialog and interaction feels less natural. How often do people speak the same words at the same time in casual conversation, and (probably) in the same tone as well? Don’t like it. Hardly a disqualifier but I have seen it more than once, and I feel like you can convey that particular interaction in a more dynamic way. Obviously, there are exceptions. If you have a bunch of people under the control of say, a hive mind insect overlord taking over the human race, then fine, you can have everyone speak in unison for dramatic effect. Then I can see the drones, the people, dead eyed, speaking…in unison. And that effect would be creepy and unsettling, yada-yada, moving on. The second thing is surrounding a very understandable frustration with the former-current-now-actually-current president of the United States, Donald Trump.

As I was driving home I was thinking of the way in which our Issue 9 contributors spoke in unison. “Fuck, Donald Trump!,” they said in unison. Makes sense. We are a leftist oriented literary journal, so it would stand to reason that submissions expressing political sentiments would want to say something to that effect. It is extremely unlikely that we'd publish a work expressing adoration for Donald Trump. And as a result, we have read through several submissions that can boil down to the sentiment, “fuck, Donald Trump.” Or, “fuck 47,” or “fuck 45/47,” or, “fuck the orange guy,” or, “get a load of this fucking tangerine, fuck that guy!” Riveting.

"Fuck Trump," was especially popular, but you want to know what was noticeably less popular?: “Fuck America.” Yeah, as a sentiment it isn’t particularly new, or interesting, but what was interesting was that this sentiment was noticeably absent in most of the, "Fuck Trump," submissions. Which disappointed me, because...you know, fuck America! I know what you're thinking, "Wow, the black and queer leftist hates America? Groundbreaking." And I get it, but it is a little surprising that it isn't a more commonly held belief. Most of the submissions that were eager to say, “fuck Donald Trump,” seem to be from writers who would not feel comfortable going further and just saying, “Fuck America.” There is a bold eagerness to condemn the current US administration but that does not extend to the institutions that helped elect him, or solidify his power. We had some submissions reflecting on news headlines that were days old. I said, "this shit just happened," while reading more than one submission. Fuck this one small aspect of America, I guess.

As of this writing, I have not sent out final acceptances and rejections for Issue 9. We’re currently finalizing our choices between some really fantastic pieces, and it has not been easy. We're going to have to pass on some great stuff. But no matter what we end up choosing it’s going to be a fantastic issue and I’m excited for you to read it. But there are some viewpoints and sentiments expressed that I just find so boring, and the viewpoints of most of them can be boiled down to, “Fuck Donald Trump." Many of the pieces approaching that subject matter will not be appearing in our ninth issue. Allow me to explain why.

I understand it seems a bit smug, and privileged to look at everything Donald Trump represents and boil it down to, “boring.” I get it, his actions itself are anything but boring. Donald Trump’s time as president so far has been horrific. He has targeted Pro-Palestinian protestors and activists, kidnapped immigrants both documented and undocumented, and sent them to detention centers or prisons outside of the country. He has pardoned criminals who have targeted vulnerable communities. His "justice" department stopped looking into instances of police brutality. His administration has closed investigations into companies accused of committing heinous crimes. He has targeted folks in the trans community, specifically trans youth who are looking to transition or just play sports. He is a colossal piece of shit, I get that. But as someone who has followed politics from a young age, the thing about Donald Trump is that he is not uniquely evil. His brand of fascism isn’t interesting, his brand of spray tan isn’t interesting, the way he talks isn’t interesting, his racism isn’t interesting, his sexism isn’t interesting. Why? Well because they are facts shared by...I would say MOST presidents of the United States. Broadly speaking, we are not in new territory.

A lot of the anger I have seen in our submissions all do the same thing, they say “fuck Donald Trump,” but they don’t dig into the why or the how. Most of it is purely surface level. Boiling down Donald Trumps specific machinations to explain why he is bad fell short sighted and honestly, dishonest. It honestly feels like a lot of the resentment from liberals comes out of sheer embarrassment. One example is, "The president is a convicted felon!" So? I don't think being a convicted felon is a disqualifier. A large bulk of the embarrassment stems from how Donald Trump is a fascist and not specifically what makes him a fascist. But it is not enough to be offended by his audacity. Look deeper. Half of the shit Donald Trump has done was made possible because of horrible policies that dipshits in both political parties either implemented themselves or failed to address. The “Alien Enemies Act of 1798,” that Trump mentioned by name as his favored method for approaching the “crisis at the border,” (a made up crisis by Republicans that Democrats would go on to adopt) was used by FDR. Hell, FDR threw Japanese people in detainment camps. Barack Obama authorized an NSA spying program that was doing illegal bulk collection of every American’s data, serving as the precursor for Donald Trump’s own surveillance plans. Ronald Reagan is THE DEVIL…why are you not pissing on his grave, right now?! Go do it! I’m already here, I’m typing this as I’m pissing on his grave! George W. Bush manufactured consent in the wake of 9/11 that led to invading Afghanistan and Iraq, and destabilized an entire region and gave us the Patriot Act. Joe Biden as a Senator pushed a horrifically racist crime bill that continues to have ill effects on the Black community, and as president he would go on to arm Israel allowing them to carry out its ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. They are ALL evil men.

But in a lot of the political frustration with Trump its less about specifics and more directed at his behavior. He’s unhinged, he’s rude, he’s a bully, he hires idiots, and yes that’s all true, but that analysis is useless. And more importantly, not unique. American apathy, arrogance, individualism, and to some extent, exceptionalism, brought us Donald Trump. Many Americans have decided that America is uniquely capable and special. It is not. There is a widely held belief that the United States should close itself off to the rest of the world, even though immigrants made the US into the global power it is today. There's a belief that we should stop feeding people who aren’t doing their part, and make it harder to get food assistance because they are LAZY. But poor people are not lazy, poor people can’t STOP working. Extend that out even further, Americans constantly deny themselves social programs that will make their lives easier because of “bootstrap mentality.”:

We can’t afford to cancel student debt. We can’t afford to give everyone healthcare. We can’t afford to guarantee housing as a human right. We can’t afford to give the people of Flint clean water. We can’t afford to send people to college. We can’t afford to invest in clean energy to stop the threat of climate change.

And this is all shit that both major parties in the United States agree on. Democrats will turn around and vote for the candidate that does not support social programs that help people. Amid a surge in popularity, Bernie Sanders still lost to both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden because his policy proposals were always framed as too radical. Does anyone remember what Hillary Clinton’s minimum wage proposal was during the 2016 primary? I don’t (and I will not look it up.) Does anyone remember Bernie’s minimum wage proposal? It was $15. And you remember it because it was popular and people wouldn't shut up about it. And that became the official number after years of debate and fighting within the party. Funnily enough that number is no longer adequate, but that number still is not the minimum wage! The federal minimum wage in the United States is, $7.25. Sorry to say but it was attitudes that questioned the usefulness of these material goods that lead to Trump, because what are you really offering as an alternative? You’re too scared to actually give American’s material changes, so what else is there? Xenophobia…fear of the other? Selfish individualism? That person over there is scary, the people who want to leave their home country and live here want to kill me, my money shouldn’t pay for your education, I want to drive my V8 gas guzzler because I’m an American, I want to own as many guns as possible because I’m scared and want to be able to kill if necessary.

Surface level Trump critiques as I have just outlined don’t work because at a certain point you’re not really saying anything about him that hasn’t been adopted, accepted, or pushed by other presidents and members of the United States congress. You can't tolerate him but you have already tolerated a lot of what you hate about Donald Trump. “Fuck America,” they said in unison. Because really, still, why are you not going further? Even after reading all of that, many of the people I’m speaking to would still stop short of saying, “Fuck America.” It reminds me of the way Bernie Sanders chooses to critique what Israel has done in Gaza. He'll call it, sure, but he'll place the blame on Benjamin Netanyahu or, “Netanyahu’s government,” as opposed to the actual perpetrator, “Israel.” You can see what’s wrong, but you still want to frame it as though it’s this one specific persons fault. It’s cowardly and it demonstrates that you are not qualified to speak on these issues. If you're just an ordinary person, that's fine, but if you're choosing to speak out and say something, taking those half measures renders whatever point you're making, pointless. Why are you constraining your understanding of politics to a system that has fucked you over? The system gave you Donald Trump fair and square…TWICE! But you’re still obsessed with his tan and his typos and his criminal record. Newsflash, he won, no one cares!

You need to look at the way things currently are and realize that we need something more radical. It’s not enough to hate Trump, because yes, he’s evil, and horrible, and hurting people in every marginalized community possible, but what’s the answer? When we finish Issue 9 and open our call for submissions for Issue 10, I’m going to ask contributors to take a minute and look at their vast collection of anti-Trump literature they have compiled. Yes, the guy sucks, his brain is made of pudding, he likely smells of poo, we get it. But is there something you want to say now that will stir people? Something that will recontextualize our understanding of something? You can start with the details and speak up for the ones who cannot speak and most importantly, BE SPECIFIC. Who is being targeted and why? What does it say about us that it is happening at all? And honestly go wider than that! Our readers are all over the world, what attitudes are leaking into other facets of global life? The global rise of fascism is real, but the global rise of neoliberalism is what brought it about. If we’re going to be in this fight together we need to decide what it is we’re fighting, and also how we’re going to fight it. Because the fight hasn’t stopped, it isn’t going to start in 2027 when Gavin Newsom or Pete Buttigieg decide it’s their time. And just a quick sidenote, honestly, if the thought of either of them being president doesn’t fill you with dread then I would hold off on submitting any political writing to u, because you are not where I need you to be in this fight. Not even close

Remember, we are not making new points when we speak about politics on the internet. These are not supposed to be grand revelations. We can learn, and educate each other, but it's never going to be one magic button that alters someones thinking. That's especially true if your political action boils down to, “go out and vote!” As for pieces that we publish in our own journal, you’re literally preaching to the choir in a lot of cases. But when I read your writing, you should not be trying to convince me that things are not normal. Especially if I am to the left of you politically. Because I already know, leftists know! That shouldn’t be your central thesis. But also, you don’t need to be where I’m at politically to have your work move me. We have published plenty of work from liberals who are to my right, and plenty of work from people to my left. The differentiating factor is that they speak to something human and raw instead of one specific moment or one specific person. It’s a reminder that whoever is in power, the ones who will be affected the most are regular people like you and me. The work may look at it through the specific political lens of that specific moment, and sometimes they will use language and people specific to that moment, but the conclusion is universal, it applies whether we’re in America or in India. Whether we’re talking about Joe Biden or about Donald Trump.

Below are poems we have published in past issues of RABBLE REVIEW that do the thing that I'm talking about in the previous paragraph. Take a look at them. They are all exceptional, hence why we wanted to publish them. But also note that they can all be mapped to our current moment in time, or several other moments of time from our past.

The poem, "Hush," by Rob Burton, mentions Joe Biden by name, but the commentary presented in the poem can apply to Trump's first or current presidency, or Barack Obama. It's a strong critique, at the time of its publishing Biden was the president so he takes the focus, but as commentary itself it is not outdated. The poem, "Mother's Cry," by Arya F. Jenkins is obviously about police brutality. But they don't boil down their commentary to one specific instance. Many United States politicians seemed to only view George Floyd's murder at the hands of police as a uniquely evil act, but just like with my point about, "fuck America,' most politicians would not speak about policing in America as a bigger problem. Mother's Cry can apply to any number of police killings that have happened prior or since the publishing of the poem. The poem, "37," by Brendan Joyce, speaks more generally, but its pointed and it paints a very specific picture of what working families and people experience. The treadmill that we are all stuck on. One of my favorite poems that we have published, "Collecting," isn't speaking to any specific political moment, but it is still political and beautifully written because it is so human. There is a pain there, and specific experiences laid out, but there is an universality that is hard to ignore. I could keep breaking down each of these poems, but I hope you get the picture, and download an issue...or two...or three, to see how our contributors approach this subject matter.

We’re not trying to “save America.” 1/3rd of the RABBLE REVIEW team is not even American. And broadly speaking, the world will be just fine without America. I don’t care about America in the symbolic sense. What I want is to fundamentally change what existing in this society is like. Speaking as an American, personally, it means changing on a fundamental level what it means to be an American, or even human. Because, again, I don’t care about, “America,” or “freedom,” or any other nationalist, jingoistic mantras Elissa Slotkin, or Chuck Schumer will fart out of their mouths to try to stir hearts and minds. Liberals think that the moment is asking them to steal back what it means to be “patriotic,” but that’s all bullshit. So is America. I don't give a fuck about America, I give a fuck about you. I care about my undocumented students. I care about my unhoused neighbors. I care about the woman sitting in traffic on her way to her second job with tooth pain because they can’t afford to see a dentist. Expand your thinking, realize you don’t owe this country anything. You owe it to the people around you who you will never meet. Donald Trump is one fucking guy whose path was paved by the leaders of our past. He is not an anomaly. If you’re only looking at him as the problem then you’re missing all the other pain that is not unique to his specific brand of evil. You’re also missing the moments of joy and life that are worth fighting for, because those moments exist now and have existed before. Right now, queer communities being targeted are gearing up to celebrate, Pride all throughout the month of June. What does that tell you? Pride didn’t start as a parade, or a protest, it started as a riot. It wasn’t waiting for your permission, or a ballot box, and it didn’t’ just happen overnight. Your fight, effort, and commentary must be ongoing and constant.

I believe that art has a role to play in our current fights and the battles still to come, it’s why I’m a part of RABBLE REVIEW. But you have to be bold with what you say, and unafraid to use that art to say something radical. If you're still holding back when you're submitting to us then what is the point? Go further. Be bold. You won't be alone. Once we’re finally all on the same page the real work can begin.

But also, fuck Donald Trump, that guy sucks.