Gettin' Political

Once upon a time, I was a happy-go-lucky child. (I.E. naive) I believed fiercely in the idea of freedom and the fact that I was safe in the freest country in the world. I teared up to songs like America The Beautiful and The Star-Spangled Banner and though the pledge of allegiance annoyed me at school every day, I gladly said it other times.

And then one morning as I was eating breakfast before school in September, 2001, I watched two planes fly into buildings in New York City and my parents argue about what was happening.

This was followed by my oldest brother getting shipped off to fight for oil in Iraq where he almost died and I'm sure watched people he knew die. I don't know any details as I've never actually sat down and asked him questions on it. It never seemed like a subject to engage in.

In 2006, I found out my second oldest brother was gay. I'd already suspected it for a while so it wasn't a shock to me.

And then a year or so later, I found out about the wage gap and how women only made $0.70 for every $1.00 a man in the same position made. This shattered the American Dream for me. My ex-boyfriend would argue with me about this if it was brought up. He fought for his life to tell me that it wasn't a true statistic. (There's a reason he's my ex, too bad this wasn't it.)

When I was pregnant with my first at 17, I spent eight weeks on bedrest, the final six of which were spent in the hospital and had my son a month after I turned 18. And a week after the 2008 election. I proudly voted for Obama via a mail-in-ballot and cried tears of joy when it was announced that he had won. A historic moment that I was a part of despite what I was going through.

In 2012, I voted again, for Obama. He had cleaned up the mess Bush left him and I felt our country was "going good", still young and naive, and avoided voting in midterms because I believed they didn't matter much.

In 2016, I voted for Hillary and believed those around me that would placate my fears by telling me "he'll never win." And then in November, it happened. The one thing I was told would never happen, happened. In the days after his win, parks in my city were tagged with Swastikas.

I spent the next four years avoiding the news because it made me sick and anxious and I was able to live my life with my head in the sand, of course I tuned in when it was important. But for the most part, I trained myself to turn it off because it made me sick thinking about kids in cages at the border.

I'm not proud of my ignorance during that time by any means, but I am proud of where I am today.

In January 2020, I read about a "weird virus" in China and began consuming daily news regarding this new, weird virus. I told my husband that I thought we ought to file taxes early so that we could prepare for what could come and by March, we had plenty of household and food items stocked up. Not a ton. Not by any means through hoarding. Just an extra thing of toilet paper or a couple extra cans of food purchased during regular shopping trips.

When the world shut down, I was surprised my intuition had been so spot on and was horrified to learn about the hoarding. So many people had tuned it out, so many people decided not to take it seriously or believe that it could possibly reach the United States.

During the lockdown, we only had to venture out once when our food was getting a little low. It was nice that we had the privilege to not have to worry about needing things. But I did worry about the sick and needy. The ones who didn't have the kind of privileges we had. The ones who didn't have the time or funding to stock up. The essential front-line workers that had to work in the public during a pandemic.

I watched his horrible press conferences and yelled at the T.V. over his horrid takes. And I hoped on everything he wouldn't win again.

I was in total disbelief in November 2020 when Biden was announced as the winner and was horrified on January 6, 2021 as I watched a group of psychopaths storm the capital. One lady's words will forever bother me, "It's a revolution."

Um... what?

I read more news than I ever did before while Biden was president. I stayed on top of things going on in our politics and I voted in midterms. He too, was handed a crumbling nation and was able to turn it around. And yes, there were times he pissed me off. Because he was a president. I didn't put him on a pedestal.

In 2024 I was angry when he dropped out at pretty much the last second, but I embraced Kamala Harris. I joined zoom calls and started consuming politics on Tiktok. I even watched my first DNC. (Which was a freaking party and an incredible thing to watch. Especially when people started doing side by side comparisons to the RNC which looked so fucking boring which tracks for a party still stuck in the 1950's.)

But in October, I started to get nervous. Once again, people tried to placate me by saying "he won't win again." Something told me otherwise. I stayed up on election night and watched as the places Kamala had been leading in flipped red. One after another after another. I dropped to the floor in tears, sick to my stomach at the very thought of another four years of him. Everything he said and project 2025 filled my head.

I sat there for the next two months angry at all the people saying "It was stolen but they will stop it." "Kamala is a lawyer she is investigating it and won't sign off on it." I was angry at how blind everyone was being in these online circles. I just wanted to scream at them to stop bullshitting themselves and everyone else and to wake up to the horror show we were about to endure.

I spent 2025 angry at so much shit. So many horrible things happened. I.C.E. raids, and collapsing relationships with our allies, the unbelievable grifting, the companies backing him. The celebrities coming out in support of him and his regime. It was sickening. I went to my first protest and three more after. And by the end of the year, I wanted nothing more than to make a difference in the world.

I found out about a local group of women who were feeling the same way as me and wanting to push to get candidates in front of constituents and push for more people to vote and I joined.

And now I've spent the last six months, more involved in politics than I have ever been in my life. I'm looking at helping create a local mutual aid network. I've taken various trainings through the ACLU. I took a Cottage Food Safety class and learned how to make bread so I can figure out a way to give people in need free fresh baked bread.

From this group, I've joined a local consortium to help people in the city I live in. We have some amazing ideas and things we are working on and I'm so fucking proud of the work we are doing.

I'm trying to make a difference in the world. It's hard. It's trying. And some days it's so god damn heart breaking because I know I cannot help every single person that needs it and I wish on everything that I could. But I know I'm making a difference, even if it's a small difference. And I encourage everyone with even a small amount of empathy, to get out there and help your communities. If you have privileges, use those for good. Small differences all over can add up to a big change in humanity and I think with everything that's going on in the world, we can make a difference by working together.

We are out of time for sitting by idly. It's time we rise up and take real action.