WHAT NOW?
TEMU Gilead is Coming: An Unvarnished Reckoning with Our Own Failures
This isn’t just a loss; it’s a colossal, existential crisis that everyone on the anti-QMAGA side, from Democrats to so-called progressives, needs to confront with brutal honesty. Trump has clawed his way back into power, buoyed by young male voters, sweeping the electoral college and taking both chambers of Congress. The dystopian blueprint outlined by Project 2025 is now within arm’s reach of becoming reality, and while there’s plenty of blame to go around, this moment demands an unsparing self-critique of our own faction’s spectacular failures.
Over the past two decades, a toxic combination of identity politics, performative activism, and hollow gestures of moral superiority has undermined what should have been a broad, powerful coalition against fascism. Instead of building alliances, we drew lines in the sand. Instead of engaging and educating, we alienated and dismissed. The pendulum swing between left and right has only accelerated, each side stoking the other’s flames in a downward spiral. And here we are, watching the collapse of democracy with smugness and overconfidence as fuel for our own undoing.
Identity Politics and Performative Activism: The Double-Edged Sword
Identity politics has been weaponized against us as effectively as we’ve used it to rally support. What began as a call for recognition, equality, and justice has been twisted into a purity spiral, where every misstep is grounds for cancellation and every dissenting voice—even within our ranks—is branded a heretic. We’ve reduced complex human issues to hashtags and purity tests, alienating potential allies with a sanctimonious fervor that rivals our enemies’. What’s worse, we’ve become oblivious to the backlash this has created among younger men—particularly white men—who feel vilified and abandoned, driving them straight into the arms of the right.
Want proof of this? Look no further than any outrage towards this very critique of ourselves or that very sensation you're feeling right now to dismiss my points, or to accuse me of being QMAGA, a misogynist, or some other convenient label. That is precisely the problem.
It’s no accident that Trump has seen a surge of support among Gen Z males. We’ve handed them over with our relentless portrayal of masculinity as toxic, our demonization of entire demographics, and our refusal to engage in meaningful dialogue. Every performative gesture, every viral Twitter clapback, every “woke” marketing campaign that reduces people’s lived experiences to commodified slogans—this is the oxygen that has fueled their resentment. And they’ve responded by voting in droves for the man they see as the ultimate middle finger to the establishment we represent.
Overconfidence and Smugness: The Seeds of Our Undoing
Our political campaigns have been plagued by a smug, overconfident belief that moral superiority alone would carry us to victory. Kamala Harris, to her credit, didn’t lean heavily into the “first woman” narrative during her campaign. But the broader messaging from her camp, the overreliance on pop culture endorsements, and the naive assumption that “Swifties” and Hollywood elites would deliver an unshakable base reveal how little we understood the electorate. We banked on identity and celebrity while underestimating the deeply ingrained conservatism within key demographics, including Latino voters, who remain far more complex and varied than we cared to acknowledge.
This overconfidence blinded us to the reality that smugness and moral posturing are not substitutes for coalition-building. The Latino community, for example, has shown time and again that their votes cannot be taken for granted. Yet we assumed that platitudes and virtue signals were enough, while the right steadily worked to win them over with culturally resonant messages and appeals to tradition. We’ve seen this before, but refused to learn the lesson: alienating allies, relying on performative gestures, and dismissing uncomfortable truths only strengthens the opposition.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The loss of this election isn’t just a temporary setback—it’s a harbinger of a dark future. A future where Project 2025’s corpochristofascist agenda is enacted, draining what little remains of our democracy, stripping away rights, and leaving us to fend off an authoritarian regime with dwindling resources and even fewer allies. We have already seen what happens when we rely on fantasies of “resistance” without the hardened resolve, the coalitions, and the practical strategies to back it up. The younger men on our side, while passionate, are often ill-prepared for the ugly reality of what resistance will truly require.
So what now? Are women and other marginalized groups prepared to rise above the petty infighting and bring the fight where it truly needs to be? Are we ready to abandon the performative acts and embrace true, coalition-based action that goes beyond virtue signaling and social media outrage? Or will we keep doubling down on what hasn’t worked, content to watch democracy crumble from the sidelines while we trade moral victories for actual losses?
TEMU Gilead is coming. The question is whether you will play the role of TEMU Offred—engaged in empty gestures and divisive rhetoric—or if you will wake up, before the last of us who have fought, and bled, and sacrificed are too exhausted, too old, or too dead to be of any fucking use. The time for games is over. Wake up before it’s too late. I hope I'm wrong, I hope I'm being an alarmist and that I am utterly wrong, but if I'm not, please stay safe.
