Is Newsom doing things right now that are supportive of those rights? Yes.

Are you aware that you are posting this to Blahaj Zone?

I am going to vote against fascism. If the Democratic party insists on choosing a candidate who agrees with Republican efforts to genocide me, then I am going to vote against their fascist too. And don’t come looking for me to whine about it after; by the time the Niemoller poem gets to you I’ll be long gone already.

My in-person community was toxic and abusive, and I didn’t even realize it until I found a warm, accepting, and much healthier online community to compare with. “Retreating” was a survival need. I’m glad your offline community isn’t harmful to you but don’t assume that is the case for everyone.

I’m also part of one of those small artistic cultures you mentioned and it evolved and thrived way more with the arrival of the internet than it ever did in the days of small in-person gatherings and physical-only publishing. Art is furthered by cultural contact and mutual exchange of ideas, not isolation.

Now, you do have a point that there is a problem with homogeneity and stagnation these days, but the real cause of it is late-stage capitalism. The harder it is for the average person to make a living, the more they are forced to focus all of their energy on making money. For an artist, that means not having any time for masterpieces or experimental projects because Fast and Marketable is the only way to make rent. Arts and culture are starving because a small number of billionaires are sucking up all the financial nutrients (and then passing censorship laws to cut down anything that still manages to grow, until the only things left are as boring and mundane as they are.)

My Aberrant Mind Sorceress had been making frequent use of her telepathy ability to communicate silently and to keep in touch with allies that went scouting away from the party. Then she opened something she was told not to and ended up with a piece of Nyarlathotep living in her mind. When she later used her telepathy on the Monk, the DM ruled that it allowed the outer god to enter his head as well. Now we had a permanent three-way group chat that neither I nor the Monk could leave, whose moderator frequently posted literal nightmare fuel, and the rest of the party was suddenly very insistent that I only communicate with them verbally from now on.

One time I tried using my telepathy on an enemy. His head exploded. Gnarly was very unhappy about me adding people to the chat without permission and suggested that I not do it again.

Must have been nice. I was an “essential” worker so I spent the entire time busting my ass in the middle of a packed grocery store, terrified of being assaulted by some angry dicknosed moron and bringing their lethal infection home to my elderly parents. I started having panic reactions to seeing unmasked faces, even those of close family members I was living with. Meanwhile, I kept hearing all these people talk about being paid twice my wages to sit at home and learn new skills like I had always wished I could afford to do.

And what did I get for all of my hard work? A fancy pin from my employer with a letter patting themselves on the back for protecting us. They didn’t protect us at all! They actively defied the mask mandate and told us it was our own fault if customers threatened or attacked us for wearing one!