Nobody Voted for This

Nobody Voted for This

I don’t think anybody voted for this. Even watching the news, which is bad for my mental health, is something that I am drawn to more and more. It’s like watching a plane crash, except we watched two planes crash in a week over and over and over again not believing what happened and yet it happened. And he’s still in office. And his lackeys are taking over our data. And I don’t know what I can do about it except write about what little I know, and educate myself on as much as I can take at one time.

I was on the wrong side of gay marriage. I will admit it. I was born and raised conservative and thought I was “progressive” to believe that “the gays” should have “equal rights, but it should be called something else”. I was so deep in an echo chamber that I didn’t know any other voices existed. Once I got out of that echo chamber, I felt ashamed for feeling that way, and I strived to bring other voices to my family who were still stuck in that chamber. But they wanted to be where they wanted to be. Education doesn’t breed “wokeness” or “liberalism”. Do you know what education is? It’s simply finding out more about what you don’t know. That’s it. It’s not being afraid of what you don’t know. It’s not saying that you’re stupid or feeling guilty for things you used to not know. I’m still having a difficult time coming to terms with that myself. I beat myself up for not having more empathy as a kid and letting myself being manipulated by people who should have known better, but they didn’t, because they didn’t step out of their comfort zones and learn about people’s stories other than their own and think “I might have something to learn from this person.” 

“Education” isn’t just about learning new skills. It’s admitting that you don’t know everything, and possibly admitting that some things you thought you knew might be wrong and being okay with that. One of the main reasons I gave up learning Spanish is because one of my Spanish speaking friends laughed at my totally American accent. She said I would never grow out of it, and instead of being okay with it, I just gave up because I “couldn’t do it perfectly.” I now regret it as I lost most of the Spanish I spent eight years learning. Another reason was that I was afraid to make mistakes. As I got into harder Spanish classes, they started picking apart my Spanish more and more, not to be mean but to help me be even better. I didn’t know how to take criticism because I was a straight A student and nobody ever taught me how to take constructive criticism, so I just thought I sucked at Spanish. I started dreading Spanish class, especially written papers with all the marks on it. Then after college I just silently quit.

The people I know who think LGBTQIA+ people are going to hell wouldn’t describe themselves as mean. Almost nobody thinks of themselves as mean. But most of them either haven’t met people of the Queer Community, haven’t listened to their stories, or haven’t befriended them. They aren’t educated in the Community. Now, the people who were educated about me as a person for years and then turned their backs on me when I came out as gay and still think I’m going to hell… I have zero sympathy for them. They knew me. They didn’t care about my struggle. I used to think I just had to find the right words to display my struggle and they would have a change of heart, but they chose their beliefs over their empathy long ago without even realizing it. Now I have to figure out how to interact with those types of people that I cannot permanently unfriend and block from my life.

Going back to who is in the White House, I hope everyone is shocked by what is happening. I hope nobody voted for this hostile takeover. “America first,” which in theory I agree with and have gotten A LOT of crap over the past few weeks is not something that they believe, and now they are showing their true colors. By America first, I mean we should take a week, house the homeless, get jobs for the unemployed, start education programs for more social workers, psychologists, mental health workers, etc. so we can get that field up and running, feed EVERYONE here, and get everyone who is already within our borders situated, and then help the rest of the world, but as I’m reminded Republicans are pushing for America first but block all the programs for that and Democrats refuse to take that idea seriously while pushing for the government to actually fund the programs necessary for that to happen (as well as a whole bunch of foreign aid policies).

It's time to unite against the hostile tyranny, yes tyranny, and take our country back! I’m going to look for a job while I still have DEI resources to help me since I’m disabled but qualified but might need accommodations to do my job effectively while I still have funding to do so!

What are you going to do against the orange tyrant?