This A.I. video came across my Bluesky feed today. It resonated with that tiny sliver of hope that I still harbor, that this pendulum swing so far into fascism is the last throes of White Christian Nationalism, that it has swung so far and will hurt so badly that even the most politically-ambivalent Americans rise up to usher in a new bold progressive age, similar to how we rejected the Gilded Age and launched the Progressive Era of the early 20th century.
But there was one aspect of it that gave me pause because I’m afraid it’s going to be accurate. Watch it first below and then I’ll share my observation.
A very long 4 years…
— S.E.E. Danesti (@seedanesti.com) August 9, 2025 at 7:13 AM
[image or embed]
The beginning of the healing doesn’t take place until the white people on the right make it happen. There isn’t a blue-haired cat lady, not a fabulous trans woman, not a single Harris voter in the entire video. Every victim of the layoffs, inflation, flooding, and deportations is an overt Trump supporter, identified by their red MAGA cap (including the single Black person, a janitor) or their MAGA sign (including the sole “Latinos for Trump”). There is only one old, white veteran in the video without any overt MAGA iconography in the shot, and that might be a blue MAGA button on his lapel.
The people who are fed up enough to instigate the Second American Revolution that begins the healing are all Republican MAGAs and white, foremost.
A common lament on my Bluesky feed is from lefties who weren’t prepared for the immediate capitulation by industry, academia, and law to the Trump regime. But why wouldn’t they capitulate when they know there’s no left-wing pressure not to? The times the people in America have tried to obstruct capitalist fascism—from W.T.O. protests to Keystone XL pipeline protests, from Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter, from #MeToo to Trumpstein—the leadership of the so-called left is eager to help the right squash or temper those movements.
The most popular Democrat in the Senate right now is Bernie Sanders, the guy the Democratic establishment made sure couldn’t be nominated in 2016 and 2020. The most popular Democrat in the House right now is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex, the gal the Democratic establishment has sidelined twice now for leadership in the House Oversight committee. The rising Democratic star in America right now is Zohran Mamdani, the guy the Democratic establishment can’t bring itself to endorse as the Democratic nominee to lead the largest Democratic city in the nation.
Now that the real fascism is here, why would anybody on the left rise up to fight it, knowing there’s some octogenarian in leadership ready to punch any hippies who’d lead the way?
It would’ve been nice if the video worked in an angle of MAGAs facing these hardships alongside the rest of us, scenes of each forgiving the other, and the combined mob of red hats and blue hairs, flannels and fabulous, white and brown and black faces, all seizing the MAGA Ballroom together. I don’t want to bet the next century of healing on the same people who brought us this harm.