Part IV – The Aftermath: A Letter to Those Still Watching

The Call Is Coming From Inside the House

I typically don’t mean to “sit down and write a piece.” That’s so formal. No — typically something I see or hear sets me off, and my thumb is pounding away at the face of my phone before I know what’s happening. (And yes, I write from my phone. It’s a very special occasion when I actually use a keyboard and all ten fingers. Most of my epically long posts were written with one digit.)

I end up posting the things I post because it’s too maddening to stay silent when I see something others might not. I’ve done it for years and years — under the radar. I’ve asked myself why I’m putting so much effort into posts that no one finds out about. If a tree falls in the woods sort of stuff. But I always return to it anyway, without hope of compensation, or to receive notoriety, or even praise. (Well, a compliment is always nice…)

So imagine my surprise when someone actually noticed me. Lots of people. Suddenly, in my micro-world, people I’ve never met are telling other people I’ve never met about me — and they’re telling my friends, who tell me.

Suddenly, in the macro-world, it appears to be a lot harder for Speaker Johnson to get away with his House-debilitating activities without some fallout…because of my furious thumb.

It’s hard to imagine that the itch in the back of your head that gets set off because of a snatch of an answer you hear a politician give in an interview could cascade into what this has become. To go from spelling out your thoughts to no one in particular to sudden sustained interest in said thoughts is quite a shift. Andy Warhol was right: everybody gets their fifteen minutes of “fame,” and I’m glad I used mine to ring an alarm.

And now, many more Americans have been clued into the subversive ways opponents to our way of life can, will, and are using to dismantle it in plain sight. The more people are made wise, the better chance we have of retaining a sense of awareness, of being tipped off about these innocuous-seeming maneuvers before they become irreversible.

So, yeah. It’s been quite a week! I’m not sure how people who regularly go viral even use their Facebook after that. My page was pretty much unusable for days, my notifications filled with the names of people I don’t know but with whom I share a passion for this country.

I received more Substack subscriptions in one day last week than I had in the total time I’ve had a Substack. And tons of IG friend requests—and how disappointed they must have been to discover the state of my IG.

And I learned a lot about people last week.

There are a lot of dedicated and passionate Americans out there who genuinely care about the state of our democracy. One of the incredible gifts of this week has been to create a hub of like-minded patriots. Even if we’re still figuring out next steps, it reinforces the heart to read their comments. There are way more of us than them.

I’ve also observed some fascinating behaviors from those trying to write off my words.

There’s a “Facebook lawyer” who I’ve read in the past — adamant that I don’t know what I’m talking about. She offered up a bunch of stuff in the Constitution that supposedly says that what Speaker Johnson has done isn’t possible. I can understand why a lawyer might get hung up on the words on a page. I certainly once did.

That was before Trump Version 1.0 — when I learned that laws are only black markings on paper. They require the appropriate authorities to uphold them. We give laws power. If we pretend they’re not there, then they really won’t be. Like magic. Once I saw how easily Trump ignored the Emoluments Clause, reality made itself known to me — and I’ve never forgotten.

But then I started noticing another tactic to discredit me: using my résumé as a reason to dismiss the facts in my essay. It’s almost as if they believe truth only becomes truth when the messenger has the “proper” credentials. It’s a lazy and preposterous tactic — one that says more about them than the fact that I used to perform in five shows at Disneyland could ever say about me.

The implications of that mindset are deep and disturbing. To that, I’ll say: perhaps we should engage the content for the content’s sake and stop inventing superficial off-ramps from serious engagement.

A fact is — or is not — a fact, based on its merits. To argue that a fact isn’t a fact because of who stated it is not a good look.

Being a political post, the trolls definitely came out — but instead of engaging them myself, by the time I even got to their comments, twenty strangers had already shown up to defend me and my work.

What an experience this all has been…

I find it’s in human nature to want to feel superior to someone else. And for whatever reason, there are people in this world who feel very comfortable feeling superior to someone who looks like me. And there’s a reluctance to accept the real version of me when they’re more comfortable with their idea of me. Thankfully, I realize that all of that has nothing to do with me. When you dismiss someone’s intelligence having never met them, you’re not actually commenting on them — you’re exposing your own limitations.

Living from a place where you believe you know everything about everything tells me you’re living a life with a ceiling.

You’re not living a life of discovery — you’re constraining the world to your idea of it, when the world is actually limitless.

But returning to the point of this post —

To go from screaming into the void to having strangers descend upon trolls to defend my work is indescribable. To see people volunteer to become paid subscribers on Facebook and Substack when I wasn’t even asking — it grants a validation you didn’t realize you were searching for.

One of my favorite books, The Four Agreements, says to regard compliments and insults the same way because they’re equally not real. But I’m not a stone — and in these dark days of cruelty and hatred, these strangers have refilled my cup and put wind in my sails.

And for that, I say—thank you.

We’re in this together.

This, too, shall pass … one way or another.

— Tonoccus McClain

This has been Part IV of IV of Tonoccus McClain’s series,

“The Call Is Coming From Inside the House.”

Part I – Who I Am and What We Should Do About It

🔗 Read it here.

Part II – The Procedural Coup

🔗 Read it here.

Part III – The House That Isn’t There

🔗 Read it here.