One of the things that scares elected leaders and people in power is an informed voting block. The political elite wants us to remain uninterested and disaffected. It makes it easier for them to stay in office and grow their own bag. Get informed as a way to take power back. Seriously. Read the news. Read a lot of it. Listen to a range of podcasts discussing policies and ideas you care about. Get informed. Develop evidence and data based opinions (it’s better to be a smartass than a dumbass).
It can be hard to talk about change. It’s hard to have a dialogue with people about issues going on in the country and world. I struggle with this sometimes, engaging people over contentious issues. The amount of intense news is overwhelming. And I think that those in power count on the news cycles and speed of information to overwhelm us mentally and emotionally. They count on us being apathetic citizens who don’t want to pay attention to how we are being governed and how massive corporations are controlling our lives. They want us to check out and be uninformed. It makes it easier for them to keep power by wearing us down and giving up; to make us not want to keep fighting anymore for real change.
And I understand the overwhelming feeling. Multiple times I’ve wanted to retreat from the world (I still often do) but we cannot cede our power to them. Do you remember that our Capitol building was literally overrun by a mob only a few months ago (106 days as of writing this)? Do you remember seeing the hanging gallows that was constructed? Capitol Police being crushed by protesters, Ashli Babbitt getting shot? Do you remember this guy?
That image still haunts me. Protesters were chanting “hang Mike Pence.”
There’s minimal coverage over the insurrection and Fat Wolverine (Ted Cruz) and his fellow blowhards haven’t paid a political price for it. He even went to Mexico during a crisis in his state and everyone seems to have largely forgotten about it. And he left his dog at home! Seriously, defend this lecherous piece of shit. I would love to hear a good defense of Ted Cruz (it doesn’t exist).
We are fucking numb.
This has to stop. We have to be better and we have to care. Our country is being taken over by extremists who speak the loudest and say the craziest shit. And the media covers them the same way they did Trump during the 2016 election. Anchors and reporters might care some but their bosses love the outrage because it drives their ratings. They might not admit it but it’s pretty damn clear what their priorities are based on who they choose to cover.
These ridiculous extremist candidates and elected officials don’t care about trying to make the country better for everyone (shit, they barely care about making things better in their own districts, they just try and stay on the good side of the donors so they can outspend their opponents). They want to outrage their opponents (and their “enemies”). They want to play on your emotions to fundraise off of you. And they do a damn good job at it too.
The Republican Party was sending out fundraising messages saying they would tattle to Trump if someone didn’t donate that they would tell him that donor was a “defector”. What kind of psycho manipulation is that bullshit? You’re going to run and tattle to your daddy because you’re not getting what you want? Act like fucking adults.
And Democrats aren’t much better with their email campaigns. They manipulate people’s feelings and emotions by playing on the most recent outrages of MTG or Gaetz (they both do legitimately suck but that could be another thread). All of them are trying to fundraise off our rage, grief, sadness, despair, hope, and yet things don’t really change much for us but the same people stay in power; stay in control.
These power structures count on the serious people, moderates, independents, and critical thinkers to tune out; to disengage and focus on their own lives. I’d love for that to be easier to do but we have idiots, trolls, and psychopaths running our institutions. The status quo is deteriorating within the country. Friendships and families are being ripped, some slowly and some rapidly, by the hyper partisanship and extremist nature of our current political system.
We have to get back to discussing actual policy. We have to acknowledge many of our systems are broken and change them (if you don’t think they’re broken I would love to know what you think is currently working. This is a sincere and earnest request because I don’t have faith in any of our institutions at the moment so I would love to hear another perspective). We need to be open to new information, evidence, and data about how our systems are broken so we can fix them. That’s not flip-flopping; that’s being informed and evolving your opinions based on data and facts.
Is it that people just don’t want to learn anymore? They don’t want to be challenged? What is it? Are you having trouble accepting that our country is a lot more complicated than we were taught growing up? Do you feel like you need a space to ask awkward, or maybe controversial questions? If you do, hit me up g3kiefer@yahoo.com. I will engage with sincere questions, even if controversial.
I get that you probably want to focus on your family, focus on your work, and you should do that. But you also need to spend a little more time on your community and society. The betterment of our society and future needs us to be more involved and connected with one another. Our founding fathers had lengthy debates about how they wanted the country to be governed. We can have uncomfortable conversations where we discuss policy ideas and governance strategies.
There’s enough space in our levels of government and the country to hold different ideals and not be threatened by the culture issues our politicians use to manipulate us. In your daily life you are probably unaffected by the majority of these culture issues because they either don’t really exist in your community or they do and you’re unaware of it.
We’ve lost our general sense of compassion and respect for one another. We need to get it back. We’re not adversaries. We may have different ideals but that doesn’t mean we have to be enemies. The people at the top of our power structures are the ones who want us to feel that way.
Keep learning. Keep being critical. Keep pushing back on the faux outrage and ridiculous theater of the majority of our political leaders. Challenge them. Challenge yourself. Call them out. Stop watching MSNBC. Stop watching Fox News. Find grassroots candidates in your area. Learn about the outsiders. Fight back against the power. Fight back against the political elite of both parties. That’s the American thing to do.
@g3kiefer 