I got into the game very late in life. I turned 18 in 2010, right in mid-cycle of a presidential election. At that time, all I knew is that all my classmates essentially made fun of the idea that a black man had been elected president. I heard all the narratives around him being tied to Islam (remembering that I was also die-hard Christian back then), that he wasn’t even a U.S. citizen, but I was young, dumb, in high school, and frankly, didn’t care. My life was just fine.
The next presidential election cycle was 2012, when I was in a different country. I had never heard of mail-in ballets. My parent’s never talked about voting or politic, so I didn’t know what was actually available to me. The first time I actually casted a vote for myself was in 2016. The most politically active I became at this point was understanding that Donald Trump wasn’t a good person, and that we definitely should not be voting for him. I was still very conservative at that point in time, believing that we should be working for everything, and that things should not be given out for free.
The next time I voted was in 2020. After 4 years of Trump’s chaos presidency, ending at a peak of madness with the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the huge wave of social justice movements like BlackLivesMatter, I was definitely starting to lean progressive/left, even if for no other reason than being disillusioned with the conservative side of politics - not just Republicans, but the Right as a whole. They were clearly hurting many people that mattered very dearly to me and I only began to see that as I meet more queer and BIPOC people.
Right after that election, my entire world view fell apart. I feel down the rabbit hole of capitalism, imperialism, and christianity and religion as a whole. This naturally continued as I pondered how they tied into being a part of the work force, my place in the world and universe, and how I choose to express myself. After coming out the other side, I found nothing able to ground me to the world that I saw myself inside. No political representation was sufficient with what I wanted in the world. On top of that, I couldn’t help but see all the open and festering wounds, already century old, still having salt poured into them as we continued to let horrible people with terrible ideas run the entire world. Everything I had believed was built on a lie and I was pissed about it. At this point, I felt like Bruce Banner in the early days of the Avengers.
Except I didn’t have anything I was able to punch. The best I could do was give engagement to politically oriented videos and posts on social media. It was better than nothing. Especially since I was only starting to learn about what was going on, and didn’t have any strong opinions on anything. I didn’t feel like I had anything to say that wasn’t already being said by much larger creators and much more elegantly.
Finally, we get to 2024. What honestly feels like the apocalypse for democracy in the U.S sometimes. By this point, I’m frustrated. I have no idea what I can do. I’ve considered writing. I’ve considered making videos. I’ve considered trying to join some sort of local political movement. I’m sure eventually I will end up doing all of it. For now, I’ve mostly focused on writing. I have no idea if anyone is actually viewing these posts, but at least I’m putting it out there. That’s the best I can do when it comes to interacting on the internet.
At the time of writing, we have reached a whole new high of political tension, testing the willingness of so many people to speak out on issues. Quick assumptions are being made about certain people’s political views and motives. We quickly see people at all levels of government attempting to scapegoat everyone and everything. I have seen so many instances of people not being able to genuinely look inward and analyze for themselves. Admittedly, I only know that because that is how I acted for a decade before giving up everything that I thought I knew about how the world works. It wasn’t until I started looking inward and analyzing the world around me, my biases, my privileges, and started to question why things were actually happening. It took me that long to start looking at the evidence behind why things were the way they were, and frankly, as a baby in the political sphere, I’m still having to check myself, question my biases, and not fall to logical fallacies. Changing your beliefs is hard. I don’t expect anything to happen just because a certain man got shot last week.
But that doesn’t mean we stop pushing. That doesn’t mean we stop changing. That doesn’t mean we stop checkout ourselves, and more importantly, that doesn’t mean we stop checking the people that are around us and are closest to us. If we are going to get out of the current mess, we are going to have to do it together, as a society. It’s going to take the the words of people we care about to pull us all out of this mess.
So if you’re a person that thinks the world is out to get you, please check yourself and listen to the people you are around. If they’re all saying the same thing, find someone else to talk to for a day. If someone is saying something that feels different, hear them out and ask some questions.
If you’re a person that knows the world is out to get you, I’m sorry you’re having to shoulder so much of this fight.
I don’t care if you think we should be spending our federal budget on contracts for war or on contracts for trains. I don’t care if you think we should our state budget on windmill farms or farming subsidies. I don’t care if you think we should be spending out city and county budget on microscopes for science class or free lunch for all students. These are things we
On this page, the following must be said.
Love is Love. Her body, her choice. Black Lives Matter. Trans Rights are Human Rights. Free Palestine.
Release the Epstein files.
I’m more than willing to discuss the details of budget spending, and how we should tax people and businesses. I’m willing to reach compromises and agree to disagree on the regulations on gun ownership. However, I will not be debating any “opinions” when it comes to the violation of human rights.