ARCHIVE: The opposite of fascism

Wellness check: How have you lived and thrived and fought back in a time of terrors?

We ran this essay a year ago this week, and it struck a nerve with many of you. I was re-reading it myself lately, and it helped me process my own choices over this past year.

I wonder how it strikes you. In a time of terrors, how have you chosen to live, how have you chosen to fight, how have you chosen to care? Thank you for being the community you are.

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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.

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Photos: Ryan J Lane/Getty Images; Jon Cherry/Getty Images; Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images