You Will Not Survive…unless.

Author Note: This essay was written before the inauguration and shortly after election results came in.

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You will not survive authoritarianism because you don’t know how to do your laundry by hand.

You will not survive a Trump presidency because you don’t know how to wash your blankets one by one in a bucket and lean with your full body weight on your shower chair. The holes provide a place to allow the water to flow through while the flat surface and your whole body weight prevents you from having to ring each one out by hand.

Only disabled people know this.

You will not survive authoritarianism because you don’t know how to make a container of Texmati rice last a month.

You won’t be able to take that one plastic jar down from an empty pantry day after day, measure it carefully for your own consumption, rinsing the rice first, adding in butter you got from the back of the fridge where you have been saving it, salt and pepper to taste. You won’t be able to eat this day after day.

Only hungry people know this.

You will not survive authoritarianism because you don’t know how to stay home all of the time.

You believe only agoraphobics stay home, you don’t want to become a person with a phobia or a mental illness because you don’t know how to survive with a mental illness.

Only veterans with PTSD living on the streets know this.1

You will not survive authoritarianism because you don’t know how to leave behind your belongings, the material possessions we accumulate over a lifetime. You don’t know how to gather, collect, leave and do it all over again wherever you land.

Only those who have survived intimate partner violence and family abuse know this.

You will not survive authoritarianism because you don’t t know how to love your fellow human unconditionally.

Only human beings who have experienced racism, transphobia2, transmisia,3antisemitism, classism, and marginalization at the very bottom of barrel know this.4

We love unconditionally because we were not given love unconditionally.

We recognize the humanity in even the most horrible of human beings, because we know that monsters are made by human beings, they are not great titans of mythic proportions.5

We know that every human being, no matter their perceived authority, will fall.

Because we are ALL biological, made of organs and tissue.

We are all held together precariously by skin so thin, a piece of paper could slice us in half.

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1

The current statistics are from 2023 when HUD released it’s 2023 Point-in-Time Count (PIT) and it showed on a single night in January of 2023 there were 35,574 veterans living on the streets. Monica Diaz, writes that Veteran homelessness increased by 7.4% in 2023 according to VA News, December 15th, 2023, https://news.va.gov/126913/veteran-homelessness-increased-by... (accessed December 8th, 2024)

We call this being “homeless” or a more GenZ-friendly term of “houseless” This is a 7.5% increase from 2022.

The VA says veteran homelessness is on a downward trend, but how do we choose which of these 35K+ veterans deserves to have shelter, a basic need?

2

An aversion or hatred towards people who live with the transgender experience. This doesn’t mean you are fearful of people who are living the transgender experience, many people misunderstand the use of the term phobia within the definition, much as they misunderstand most diagnosed phobia. Transphobia can include discrimination, misgendering on purpose, denying the person’s gender experience that it even exists. Transphobia causes systemic issues such as barriers to healthcare, housing, and basic needs.

3

The systemic oppression and marginalization of those with a transgender experience or in parallel to it such as anyone who is gender non-conforming or gender expansive, this includes those who sit outside the colonial definition such as two-spirit and third gender people. Transmisia escalates beyond slurs and personal discrimination into systemic issues with violence, dehumanization, and denial of basic human rights.

4

The "crab in a bucket" story is a metaphor describing how when a group of crabs are placed in a bucket, if one crab starts to climb out, the other crabs will pull it back down, preventing any of them from escaping; essentially illustrating the concept of people hindering others' progress to maintain their own level, often driven by jealousy or insecurity. AI Google Resource, Google Search, https://shorturl.at/JwJgU (accessed December 8th, 2024) Are you a crab in the bucket?

5

“In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric.”

Too Much and Never Enough (Mary L. Trump, PhD.) Synopsis by publisher Simon & Schuster, https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Too-Much-andNever-Eno... (accessed December 8th, 2024)