The shock is wearing off. The despair is still there, but anger is quickly overtaking it. Determination is stirring. It’s time.

This blog started during the latter years of the Bush regime. It started as a political blog, where a newborn liberal catalogued the outrages and tried to do her part to fight them.

When Obama became President of the United States, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief, and turn to other things. It’s been a nice eight years, not having to be a political blogger. I had time to become a geology writer. I got settled into my atheism, and learned a few things about social justice, and became a feminist. I tried writing full time, and got some books written. I worked on others, including books on Mount St. Helens, which I haven’t had a chance to finish. I delved into the horrifying world of creationists textbooks. I explored the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints and their abusive world. I was free to follow a lot of different passions.

That’s over, now.

It’s time for this blog to go back to its roots.

And it’s more important than ever to fight the regime. Because this time, it isn’t an incompetent jackass danced like a puppet by his neocon handlers. It’s a narcissistic fascist being lifted by white supremacist and Christian dominionist hands. The republic survived Bush intact but severely damaged. With Trump and his party in power, I am genuinely afraid it will fall.

And even if it doesn’t, a hell of a lot of very good, very vulnerable people are going to get hurt or killed.

I used to wonder, what would I have done when the Nazis were rising to power? Would I have believed them? Fallen into line? Fought them? Been too scared to speak out?

I don’t have to wonder anymore.

A fascist has been given the highest office in this country by a surge of white supremacists and people willing to go along for various awful reasons, and I didn’t join that surge. I fought it.

I don’t think I fought hard enough, because I believed we might just be better than that, and I failed to imagine how fucking awful so many of my fellow Americans were. I knew Trump might win. I knew this country was foolish and racist and sexist enough to let that happen, but as the election season drew on, I thought chances were excellent that Hillary Clinton would eke out a win. I thought enough Americans had seen the truth of Trump to prevent him from winning. I did some things to try to make that happen, but I didn’t do enough. And I will always regret that, that I didn’t do enough to stop it.

So, now that he’s been elected, all I can do is everything in my power to stop him. And I must do everything in my power to eradicate the racism and misogyny that got him there. It needs to be reduced from the plurality that it is now down to a shamed fringe that doesn’t dare raise its head over the parapet.

That means I can’t be a full-time writer.

I have to find a full-time job, so that I have the money and stability necessary to use my cishet white privilege to protect those who don’t have those advantages.

I have to devote the vast majority of my blogging time to this fight.

I’ll have to face down my anxiety disorder so that I can march in protests, and confront politicians, and do the things that must be done. It won’t be easy, but it’s necessary.

There won’t be a Mount St. Helens book for years, if ever. There won’t be any fiction for years, if ever. I wanted to give you those things, but I can’t now, and I’m sorry.

The posts I’ve written in advance will still go up. But the majority of the focus of this blog will change to fighting racism, sexism, and the new political regime. It will return to its political roots, because I cannot go on as if things haven’t changed.

You’ll still get four geology posts a month over at Rosetta Stones. I will occasionally put one up here first for the people who have so generously donated to keep this blog going. We’ll have occasional breaks, because we all need to remember the good things that are worth fighting for, and we all need some beauty or humor to keep up our strength.

I hope you can stand with me. I hope you will link arms with me against the bigotry and selfishness that propelled Trump to power. I hope you’ll fight with me.

But if you can’t, I’m asking you now to either stand aside or go.

Which side of the line will you be on?