What a colossal loss.
May her memory be a revolution.
May our collective sadness become a raging fury of action.
Here in France, we are six hours ahead of New York; nine hours ahead of San Francisco. Often, when I go to bed, I feel a dread about American news I’ll need to face when I wake up. This morning I woke up to panicked texts saying: NOOOOO. IT’S TOO MUCH.
My morning twitter feed ends up being six hours worth of people processing — but shown all at once. There are tweets from 6 hours ago officially announcing her death. Tweets from 5 hours ago wishing her memory will be a blessing. Tweets from 4 hours ago condemning McConnell’s ongoing hypocrisy. Tweets from 3 hours ago with meaningful tributes from those who knew her personally. Tweets from 2 hours ago talking strategy for preventing a replacement before the election. Tweets from 1 hour ago with old footage of Republican senators swearing they would never support a nomination this close to an election. Tweets from 30 mins ago showing record-breaking fundraising for Democrats running for senate. But it’s all mixed in, and the feed shows all of it at once, a deluge in no particular order.
On Instagram it feels different. While scrolling, I saw many tribute posts for RBG, but no strategy talk or anger or displays of blatant hypocrisy from Republicans — though some of that stuff will for sure show up in Insta stories (including my own).
Probably because of the wave of info that I absorbed from Twitter, I went from weeping like a baby to deep anger in about 20 minutes. I saw a tweet from Natalie Lovin that said: “I’m ready to punch Kavanaugh in the face all over again” and I felt that in my bones. (Two years ago this month the Kavanaugh hearings were happening and they still make me throw up in my mouth whenever I remember them.)
Take a moment. Breathe.
And then we fight for our country the way Ruth Bader Ginsberg always did for us.
Check your voter registration. Make a voting plan. Ask your friend to make a voting plan. Share your plans with each other. (You can find my voting plan in my Instagram highlights.) Pick a senate race that’s flippable. Support it any way you can. #BidenHarris2020
