I keep thinking about what would happen if Beyoncé declared she was running for President. (Like for months, I keep thinking about this.) We could all write her in or install her at the DNC convention and her ground swell of support certainly could win.
I wonder if that thought is co-dependent. Like I’m looking to someone else to come in and be the hero and save the day because the other options on the table are so bleak.
I wonder if that thought is demanding labor from a Black woman?
I wonder if it’s because she’s all decked out in Americana for her Cowboy Carter marketing? Each time I see it I think “This would be SO FUN if she was running for President.”
I wonder if it’s because she’s a billionaire now? She is the most capable billionaire I have heard of. And as a Virgo, she is more than competent to run the country. She’s stress tolerant, hard working and (seemingly) compassionate.
I heard a rumor during the early Black Lives Matter movement that Beyoncé and Jay-Z gave lots of money to bail funds for protestors. I like to think that’s true and they low key support leftist movements in their own way and she might care enough for us to grace us with her service for four years instead of just all of her incredible art.
(But her art is enough! Again, this is just my fantasy about how the problem of the 2024 election gets solved.)
I don’t intend to think about the Billionaire Class every day but it seems like it gets talked about daily in my circles. How the very concept of being a billionaire is hoarding wealth.
I heard a statistic that a person only needs about 50 Million in personal wealth to really spend everything they can, living luxuriously, and that anything in excess of that is just hoarding.
There’s the classic meme that Dolly Rebecca Parton is a millionaire not a billionaire because she gives so much away. (And while I frequently wear my Dolly for President tee shirt I think she, at 78 years young, should do what she wants and not take on the stress of the job. But if she was willing to do it I have no doubt she also could be elected based on the response to my shirt.)
In my little corner of the world where my net worth is six figures of law school debt, I find the more I declutter and the more I give away the better I feel.
None of these billionaires seem particularly peaceful or happy except, perhaps Beyoncé Giselle Knowles Carter.
She’s also my favorite of all billionaires and, frankly, the one who would be most competent at the Presidency. I wonder if she would do it for us as a favor, maybe we all promise to buy a sweatshirt from her every year of her term?
I watched the Max dot com series Girls on the Bus (it’s excellent!!! Put it on your watch list!). There’s a scene in the last episode at the Democratic National Convention in a VIP suite filled with billionaires and corporate oligarchs. They declare openly that they are running our politics through their monetary influence.
If only they were that plain spoken to everyone.
Would plain spoken corporate 1% evil even make a difference?
I think about how my Democrat friends are glued to their tvs about the trials and indictments of 45, they cheer so much, and how none of his fan base care about any of it. I don’t think any of his legal issues will keep them from buying a narrative of gibberish and hate and dangerously mobilizing.
What if those Democrats used their obsessive political and news watching TV time to make meals for struggling single moms or unhoused people and how that might change things more?
Beyoncé for president could be monumental mobilizing. Look at her stats from the Renaissance world tour.
And the Weekend at Bernie’s job the Democrats are doing with Biden. This man should be at home surrounded by his family gazing at a garden not “making decisions” for the United States (as though he’s actually making them).
I left the Democratic Party in 2020 but I think the party is going through a total Tower moment. In the Tarot, a Tower moment is a sudden change, chaos or upheaval because something in your life has been built on a shaky foundation and it’s likely to come crashing down.
Their support for the genocide in Gaza has lost them essential support from the far left and frankly, anyone with a conscience. We could end houselessness and have universal healthcare if we weren’t funding genocides. Israelis have free healthcare. We do not.
I left the party because even though I was raised a Democrat I realized they don’t actually follow through on anything they say they stand for. I’ve seen them win the popular election twice in my adulthood but still they haven’t moved to abolish the electoral college. Why? I watched them roll over and let the Republicans deny them a supreme court nominee when Obama was leaving office and then when the Republicans claimed the nominee when 45 was leaving office anyway the Dems rolled over and did nothing.
I think the two party system is inadequate for actual human diversity. I’m not part of it anymore. I talk to strangers in my purple part of Washington (meaning much of the rural area I live in is very red and many pockets of very blue). Nearly everyone agrees we deserve universal healthcare. What I think is funny is when people blame Joe Biden for gas prices. Who is to blame are the fact that there are only two oil companies and the three corporations in one trench coat running both parties.
I’m feeling abandoned by the government and salty about it and would love this to have a hero’s ending. I know the victim/hero mindset is a trait of coloniality and it functions to disempower people from stepping into what power they do have.
A lot of people doing a little bit makes a HUGE difference.
One of my favorite creators and thought leaders in this time is Logan Grendel of Focused on Infinity (like myself, Logan is a Patreon supported artist and activist). About voting they say:
“I vote in every single election, but until the next one I’m not going to waste a whole lot of time thinking about it, because if I’m not doing the work every day I’m going to be left with nothing but the shabby choices that are put in front of us by the vulture class.
So for those of you who have been haranguing us to vote, your move. There are 363 other days this year and lots to be done.”
Logan also posted a great video about how the victim/hero dichotomy is disempowering—I return to this video frequently.
The thing about a Tower Moment is that the outcome is always for our own good and the lessons learned (if one chooses to learn them) can launch us into a greater thrive.
The Democratic machine just pushed Biden through the primaries and wasn’t willing to have the hard conversations that those of us being affected by their decisions demanded.
Having a general election debate on TV this early is pageantry and ratings for CNN. I hope the Democrats replace Biden at the convention and I hope something unexpectedly good comes out of the current poop show of US politics.
But more than that I hope YOU, gentle reader, DO SOMETHING to make the world better the other 363 days of the year. The more of us who divest from extractive capitalism under the current model, the more swiftly we can make change.
Here’s my treatise on how I think tipping can change the world.
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