10/13/20

By Josh Rubin

Scorched earth.

During these days, days that we hope will lead to end of what I think could properly be called a reign of terror, we will see—indeed we are seeing—an angry regime doing its very best to hurt the country, the people of our country, and with specific vengeance reserved for people of color, all people who stand in the way of the imperium that was to last a thousand years. It is the imperium of greed, and its weapons, inequality and racism and exploitation, will be deployed with a resentful fervor in these days ahead.

We may not know the extent of their last lashes. Their landmines waiting for us to trip them on the other side of the election. But we see the assault on the vote itself. We see black Africans in five point restraints loaded onto buses for deportation as I write, their deportation paperwork gained under duress of torture. We see reports that our military is rounding up and transporting people in Central America, breaking up columns of the needy and afraid.

These forces will not be going away once they are out of power. The damage done will be long with us. And there is another thing we have had shown to us, that we can never forget again: this murderous cabal did not suddenly appear. Our mistake was not noticing them before, haunting the hallways of power. Some of them will keep a considerable grip after the turnover. They have long been with us, and they will long be with us. Freedom, as we have been taught, is a constant struggle. They are the ones we struggle against.

Meanwhile, hang on. It will be a rough ride. On the other side we will stand at the ruins together, and dream about and work at rebuilding the world, gazing at the scorched earth.