I’m Not Aromantic But I Believe In Their Beliefs

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

Actually no one should be having sex. All of us are aged-up minors and the passage of time is inherently problematic

one thing we forget about people on the internet is that we know almost nothing about them. Would i know if somebody's kid has congestive heart failure? Only if they tell me! Would I know if somebody is experiencing severe mental health problems? Only if they tell me! Would I know if someone has cancer? Only if they tell me!

This is a weird thing about being online. We can know a lot about someone--this person is a Christian, and a father of three children, and married to that person, and likes Cheerios--but we only know what they told us, which is--of course--almost nothing.

And yet, human pattern-makers that we are, we inevitably fill in the gaps in information with assumptions that are based on whether we kinda assume the best of someone or kinda assume the worst of them. Like, I do not imagine that Elon Musk came home from his hard work making everyone's life worse yesterday and held a sick friend's hand as that friend died--but of course that's possible! I don't know!

This happened to me a lot when I was on tumblr the first time. People often filled in gaps by assuming the worst in me, and that's fair enough, I guess. These days, people tend to (although not exclusively) fill in the gaps by assuming the best of me. But both are assumptions informed by extremely limited information, which is almost impossible to remember in the daily grind of Internet Life.

Whoever wrote this, slayed so hard with all these statements, truer words have never been spoken

im still losing it over the "how did high schoolers write 600 word essays before chatgpt" post. 600 words. that is nothing. that is so few words what do you mean you can't write 600 words. 600 words. this post right here is 45 words.

considering rewriting a oc fic to be Wilbur centric cause I hate how he’s being written out of existing fics (it’s the authors choice ofc I just feel sad about it) and I don’t want his character, or him in general, to be shunned from fanfics. I mean Dream even tho he proved it wrong, was accused of much worse then Wil ever was, but everyone still kept him in.

NO LITERALLY THIS LITERALLY THIS

Dream was accused of SO MUCH worse and no one batted an eye.

I'm like 90% sure it's been made a bigger deal online due to Shelby being a streamer.

But it's insane how everyone cuts cWilbur out of their fics and then will still use cDream. Like they'll evem say they don't support dteam but still use them but not Wilbur??

Literally like half of the DSMP cast has been accused of something or another at some point. And Wilburs the one you want to write out??? Like??? Make it make sense.

Here is your mission.

A Lovejoy Song is a Little Black Dress

Lovejoy’s lyrics are dense, with very few throw-away lines. Will Gold never just takes an easy ride on a metaphor.  (No shade to metaphors.) It seems he doesn’t write songs, he gives birth to them, and it must be exhausting. 

As a collection, the songs cover just about every possible relationship stumble a floundering person can experience.  There are bouts of hubris, self-loathing, envy, self-confidence, insecurity, and half a dozen other feelings. There is something relatable and personal for everyone.  Listen to the words -- these are songs you sing, not songs you hum -- and you will find something that describes your experience. Someone knows what you have been through and figured out how to express it. If a line doesn’t fit, just wait two bars and try on the next one.  These poems work for everyone. 

And then there’s the constant swapping of perspective.  Will oscillates between first and third person. He talks to her, about her, to him, about him, to him about her, and about himself from the outside and the inside.  In the same song.  At first it drove me nuts. It made me work a little to follow the narratives, flipping the lyrics on their head to make them work.  The narratives are compelling enough to make it worth the effort.  But then I came to love it. 

I love the POV shifting for the versatility it permits. No matter your gender or who you are pining for, there is a verse that speaks directly to you. Despite the straightness of the overall theme, Relationship Misadventures of a Cis-Het Man, there are countless opportunities for queer interpretations if the lyrics are taken in pieces. Gay men (and straight and lesbian slash enthusiasts) get to hear Wilbur Soot sing he or him, if only for a verse. He sings about liking and not liking new boyfriends and girlfriends…Is his ex dating a girl now? Is the ex a boy or a girl? Whose girlfriend is she? Are you jealous of him or of her? Who were you in the back seat of the car with?!? Anyone you want it to be.  These work for men, women, straight, gay, and my favorite, heteroflexible. Sure, we know what he meant. But choose your own adventure.  

A Lovejoy song is a Little Black Dress. Versatile. Sexy. Always appropriate. Now go put it on.

Pretty funny that everybody on this entire web site is a fucking mammal.