Oct 8, 2026 · 8 min · 6 segments
In this deeply personal Midnight Musings episode, Ejeris reflects on the recent death of their mother, and the ways her life helped shape the vision behind The Fascism Barometer. Ejeris shares…
Kind of like you could sum her up in, in really believing that things were going to get better, kind of similar to that, like, Martin Luther King Jr. quote about, like, the, "The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice." So as I became more politically active, my mom was one of my favorite people to bring towards, like, conferences and events and meetings and protests that I was going to, and it was always a litmus test for me, like, are we doing what we're supposed to be doing? Are we creating spaces where anyone can come and join? And as I got more and more involved, I started to realize that some of the spaces that I was in were confusing.
Like, meetings where anyone who was concerned could come to, be welcomed, and get involved.
And one of the reasons that kind of fighting fascism was really important to me was the more I read about it and what it takes to confront it, the more people talked about these kind of like mass, interconnected, large-scale movements that truly contending with fascism requires, and these ways that people who may only agree that fascism is not the way forward, but they may not agree on too much more, needed to unite.
And that excited me, 'cause it, it meant we had to practice a different type of politics.
Like, if I can't find a meeting that my mom can go to and feel welcomed and feel like she's understanding what's happening, and she's, she's a smart person, right? Then how are we gonna build these massive movements? So over the last few months, I've been organizing these online meetings for my family to say goodbye to my mom once we realized that things were getting pretty dire with her cancer.
Kind of like you could sum her up in, in really believing that things were going to get better, kind of similar to that, like, Martin Luther King Jr. quote about, like, the, "The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice." So as I became more politically active, my mom was one of my favorite people to bring towards, like, conferences and events and meetings and protests that I was going to, and it was always a litmus test for me, like, are we doing what we're supposed to be doing? Are we creating spaces where anyone can come and join? And as I got more and more involved, I started to realize that some of the spaces that I was in were confusing.
Like, meetings where anyone who was concerned could come to, be welcomed, and get involved.
And one of the reasons that kind of fighting fascism was really important to me was the more I read about it and what it takes to confront it, the more people talked about these kind of like mass, interconnected, large-scale movements that truly contending with fascism requires, and these ways that people who may only agree that fascism is not the way forward, but they may not agree on too much more, needed to unite.
And that excited me, 'cause it, it meant we had to practice a different type of politics.
Like, if I can't find a meeting that my mom can go to and feel welcomed and feel like she's understanding what's happening, and she's, she's a smart person, right? Then how are we gonna build these massive movements? So over the last few months, I've been organizing these online meetings for my family to say goodbye to my mom once we realized that things were getting pretty dire with her cancer.
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