Rodriguez: Stop Trump and Vance
Use the voting booth—vote strategically
Gaza now has close to 40,000 people killed, mostly non-combatants, with largely U.S. ordnance from a right-wing and genocidal regime in Israel. Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine. And violence rages in Congo, Sudan, Kenya, and Bolivia.
We can’t pretend these events don’t matter. Our lives are intertwined through private interests as well as tax dollars. At the same time, the United States is facing a neo-fascist drive.
Yes, I will name things as they are.
The Republican National Convention followed the fascist playbook with an "American" twist. Call it Project 2025 or Article 47. Fascism is when a powerful section of the ruling class and a significant number of disenchanted middle-and working-class people unite to forcibly remove democratic structures for a totalitarian regime.
They are all clamoring for tyranny. In the U.S this drive is shaped by white supremacy, xenophobia, anti-LGBTQ bias, Christian Nationalism. Every country has their own style and modality. So-called "illegal immigrants" are a key target, even if such designation shouldn't exist for anyone, ever.
Trump, in a July 13 rally in Pennsylvania, was in the middle of railing against them when a young man, who happened to be white and a registered Republican, shot at him, killing one man and wounding two others.
Yet the terrible rise of gun violence never made it to the Republican convention. Instead, anti-Queer and anti-immigrant rhetoric were all over the place. Lies, lies, and more lies. Even declaring the one supreme God, creator of all, is on their side. I heard proclamation after proclamation how “God saved Trump.”
It reminds me of W.B. Yeats lines from his 1920 poem “The Second Coming”: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity."
With all the pomp, personalities, and postering, we are in danger. Politics as we know it is fragmenting, opening the door for the worst to prevail. Democrats are in process to save what they can of what they have left. We can't save the Democrats. We can save ourselves.
Organize, speak, write, do poetry, dance, theater, videos, art, music... shout from the windows. We can't do this with violence but with truth, with peace for Gaza and everywhere else, for a world in which the shared wellbeing of everyone is paramount. In which essential needs are met and we are free from any tyranny.
Yes, a clean and green environment, social justice and equity in everything, no more policing or mass incarceration as we know it, free quality healthcare and education for all, no more unhoused, hungry, or pushed out. But also, for women's choice around their bodies, no more banned books, and for the arts in every community.
I can imagine a far better world than the Republicans or Democrats. But I'm also strategic. Use the voting booth--vote strategically. I'm with Jill Stein and the Green Party. I think other alternative parties and candidates have positions that matter. I can vote Green because it won't hurt. But in other places where it might, use the Democratic Party, despite themselves.
To stop Trump and Vance, to stop this fascist drive, we’re going to need everyone we can, no matter who they are. We can’t let this madness, already becoming normalized, become our governance. Don't abandon anything. Think outside of the two-party system, but also strategically. Our battles are immediate and long-range. We have demands now and a vision for the future. A new world is possible.
Luis J. Rodriguez, also known as Mixcoatl Itztlacuiloh, has 17 books in all genres. He’s cofounder of Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore and founding editor of Tia Chucha Press. From 2014-2016, he served as Los Angeles Poet Laureate.