The Empire (With Some Help From Some Short-Sighted American Voters) Strikes Back, A Political Essay by Chris M. Barkley

In the early morning hours of November 6th, 2024, it rained heavily in Ohio. It woke me up and I had an uneasy feeling of dread.

My partner Juli and I had spent the evening with friends, drinking, laughing and playing bar trivia (a contest I am happy to say we won handily.)

All of us had assiduously avoided election day coverage, especially since the polls were either closed or closing. We went to bed, hoping for a good outcome for ourselves, our family and children and our friends.

In the middle of the night, I sat thinking the worst had happened and I prepared myself for that outcome, if it happened.

And it did; at 7am, the clock radio tuned to National Public Radio made the fateful pronouncement; that America had chosen Donald J. Trump to be elected president.

Again.

Over the past forty-eight hours, there have been many opinions about why people rejected Vice-President Harris for Donald Trump. Most pundits, backed up by various polls and surveys, say that people’s dissatisfaction with the economy was why they voted for Trump.

But, there were other factors as well; latino men in particular voted in wide margins for Trump, as did record surge of white voters, the most in twenty years.

This is highly disturbing in light of Trump’s open disparagement of latinos and the hateful rhetoric directed at latin countries and their populations.

The message was clear; a majority of the American people were unwilling to elect a person of color, and a woman, to the presidency. This is very disheartening.

So what does any of this have to do with the sff community?

Everything.

Because we have been here before. And not just historically speaking either.

I was born in 1956 so I have lived through the presidencies of Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joseph Biden and Trump.

I can tell you from personal experience that none of those regimes could be ranked as easy sailing and I can only hope that today’s history textbooks are as sanitized as mine were in the 1960’s.

Before I discovered sff fandom in 1976, I had not only experienced the turbulent history of the time but George Orwell’s 1984, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and other dystopian stories and novels.

And so had my fannish contemporaries. Our shared experiences were a common touchstone; we may have differing political positions but on the whole, we were more aware of what was going on, both here and abroad. Our views may have changed over the decades but our engagement with events has never faded.

But, over those same decades, fans have branched off into several parallel and interesting fandoms; anime and comics, film and television, furry and cosplay.

Some have insisted on being apolitical and others have gone all in on so-called “virtue signaling” or “identity politics”.

Some readers may recall that several years ago, I was banned from several sf Facebook pages for promoting racial hate when I advocated for writers or filmmakers of color. Their excuse was I was doing it to the detriment of white creators. Astoundingly, these were the same people watching and reading about Star Trek, Doctor Who and Babylon 5, franchises that were markedly multi-racial and were about struggling against and overcoming societal problems. Needless to say, the irony of their arguments completely went over their heads.

Another concern for fans, artists, authors and editors is that if America is going all in on fascism and authoritarianism, fandom, the World Science Fiction Convention, the World Fantasy Convention, ComicCons and other activities will no longer be safe places to congregate or express opinions contrary to those of the incoming federal government or state and local authorities aligned with Trump’s point of view.

I am not being alarmist when I say that I expect that prudent fans may actually stop going to conventions all together eventually.

And films like The Second Civil War and Alex Garland’s Civil War (which I reviewed here back in May) seem ominously prescient. (Link to So Glad #86: The Second Civil War and Civil War) This morning (Thursday) I heard something that chilled me to my bones. ON NPR’s morning political talk show 1A, a young white woman proclaimed that when it came down to her decision to vote for Trump, she considered that “the
values Trump have were better than Harris’ values”.

When I think about what I saw and experienced, that an elderly, white misogynist, ex-real estate mogul, convicted criminal, spouting, spouting hate, fear and vowing recriminations verses a woman of color who was a law school graduate, former attorney general, Senator and Vice-President of the United States promoting the protection of people right’s and the Constitution, the choice, at least for me, was
pretty damn easy.

I did not vote for the person who (among many, MANY other alleged crimes) received a mysterious (and previous undisclosed) ten million dollar “loan” for the Egyptian government, who tried to coerce the president of Ukraine to investigate a potential political rival by threatening to withhold foreign aid, incited a crowd to riot and disrupt the count of electoral votes at the Capitol and was found to have
hoarded hundreds of boxes of classified documents in his home after he left office.

For this anonymously clueless woman, this constituted an equal choice. And she was openly approving of someone who has not only committed criminal acts but admiring remarks about Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin.

It’s the most frightening thing I have ever heard anyone say after a presidential election.

And if a decisive majority of the population feels this way, the animosity, the divisiveness and the economic and culture wars will continue unabated.

And the only people capable of turning down the rhetoric are Trump, the Republicans and their MAGA supporters. And if they don’t, civil discourse will disintegrate and a civil war will be inevitable.

For my part, I would rather have a neighbor I can disagree with peacefully than one who would like to see me disappear, or worse, dead.

And so, the Empire (as it were) has struck back, duly and fairly elected by a majority of the American people. And I guarantee there will be a Rebellion with an active Resistance and I plan to be among them. The Return of the Jedi will be an ongoing concern for us, for the next four years and for a decade or two beyond.

I have no intention of giving up, on sff fandom, the Constitution of the United States or my country.

And most importantly, I cannot AND will not give into or be swayed by the fears being generated by Trump, his administration or his supporters. I will allow myself to rest, but I am NOT allowing myself to give up.

And neither should you!

I want to end with a message, directed to the people who voted for Donald Trump; to paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin: To those who would sacrifice elements of your, and others freedoms, for the illusory promise of prosperity, abundant fossil fuels, lower prices, good times and some measure of security, and that you have done so on the word of a known liar, a seditionist, a self proclaimed fascist and convicted criminal, you deserve NONE of those things.

And when these promises do not come to pass and the crimes and atrocities begin to pile up, you only need to look in the mirror to find the culprit of your fears, frustrations and despair.

Featured Image:  Facebook – creator unknown