Politics is a dead end to me. The system is too corrupt. I was reading Thomas Merton's Seven Story Mountain, found this quote, and went to find a meme of it. Politics is the Truman Show. They lie to us just about everything. It is games of money and power. I have no money or power so what can I do? I probably will still talk about politics on here and elsewhere especially if things get even crazier, but how come only a slim margin of people have figured out the system doesn't care about us?
The Democratic party went illiberal long ago supporting authoritarianism, censorship, Covid-crack downs, vaxx mandates, and other insane things as I wrote about on here multiple times. That said, I'm too poor and disabled to become a Republican. Trump just seems to want to smash the Constitution into little pieces. It's a rerun of the usual, giving more tax money to rich billionaires, who seem to want to destroy society in their greed. Neither party represents me or my interests. I will admit on here, I often voted for some Democrats based on my disability needs but that got harder and harder. Things got complicated as I agreed with Democrats on SOME issues and Republicans TOO on others. I simply don't fit either party.
The other week I observed a protest, I used to go protest against Trump and wrote about that here. This was the "Hands Off" protest against Trump. My husband wanted to protest. I didn't, we were on the way to somewhere else.
I told him, "I will stay in the car". We had a front row seat to a local protest. He parked on a front street corner, so I had a first-hand view. He then took his place on our main street, as I stayed in the car. I took some pictures to entertain myself. I'm glad I sat things out because the protest while I agreed with a few things about Musk the trillionaire, and "Hands Off" Social Security, the usual litany of Ukraine and pro-trans flags predominated. Things were much simpler years ago. That was before Covid, the world, and Democratic party went insane. That was before I realized I no longer fit in with whatever liberalism is today.
Where were these people when we were being smashed down by Covid and seeing endless freedom destroyed? Where were they then? It made all the signs about freedom kind of ironic to me. 'There were times I wanted to go out in the streets in a rage during Covid, even with signs protesting giving experimental vaccines to kids. Back then, I looked for fellow Covid protesters but all I found was a Mom's for Liberty club that cared more about banning books than Covid vaxxes.
Will I have to go out in the streets in the future if they cancel Social Security and do even worse? Maybe. Who is there to protest to? Hmm that's a thought. "Vote them out!" seems to be a dead end, when the people you don't want always win.
What about the things I agreed with Republicans on, like ending Ukraine war-[not sure if it has been yet], or ending of mandates or the second amendment? Trump has crossed many lines that bothered me from Supreme Court rulings that gave him immunity to the insanity of sending citizens to foreign prisons like El Salvador. The government in my opinion is turning totalitarian as a whole, it started long ago. Maybe all governments go rogue with time.
Americans had it better than most in world history. That may be over. I warned about NDAA, the Patriot Act and black box prisons years ago, it's not so far of a stretch that all the powers given the administrative branch by Bush and Obama, are now being used by the next president in line. The black box prisons now are overseas. They know it's too far for most people to reach to help their family member.
The protests are all controlled. I noticed the messaging was all dictated by the Soros group, "Move on" with the "Hands Off" message, and "No Kings" message for a later protest. That kind of bugged me. Like people have to be told what to protest about. I was bothered as the messaging seemed all scripted. Many things bothered me about the local protest I observed.
No one protested the economy or cost of living or groceries, or our falling standard of living! No one cared about Gaza [I only saw one sign] or Yemen! There was not one anti-war sign in the mix! [not even one "No war with Iran".] I looked around and had husband drive around a bit to see if I could find some fellow vax genocide protesters or some way-ward fellow anti-war people but didn't find any. I would have gone to talk to them. There were some protests for women's rights and defending trans rights. Not one mention of Covid or what was done during Covid. Some remained masked even now. One guy carried a sign "Trump is the Antichrist", I found that amusing as there's people theorizing that now. How many American presidents are so awful, people have wondered if they are the Antichrist? I remember as a kid counting the letters in Ronald Wilson Reagan's name. There was another lady carrying a sign, "It's time to repent". One guy drove around a car with a Trump 2024 sign plastered to both sides. He was the only counter-protester.
How come reality isn't being dealt with at our protests? Maybe because those are controlled too? Think about it, the controllers don't want the real hard issues dealt with like discussing the real state of the economy. I remain in shock, that there haven't been any protests at grocery stores. There are endless videos out there of private people talking about the economy and how bad it is. How come that's no concern at these protests?
There was at least 500-1,000 people in my small-medium sized town. Everyone seemed to be over the age of 65-70 with some millennials scattered here and there. They were predominantly female too. There was a poster on X making jokes about the geriatric turn-out in their town. It was a Saturday so younger working people could have been there. Our county is mostly conservative so that may explain some of the turn-out.
My husband continued his protesting, he finished up. We said hello to a few church members of the UU church I left. I am still friendly with many at other groups and community events.
Everyone who reads here knows I see both of our main parties as one big uniparty just like most "conspiracy [reality] theorists" do. I won't say I never will protest in the street again. It could happen, if things get nuttier. If they collapse Social Security, I could be living in the street anyway. I'm too disabled to do marches or any of that. I considered being a "one woman" protest and taking some anti-war posters or one's addressing the economy. Something to think about. There was some sad irony that my husband was re-using posters from our 2016-2019 former protesting era.
In real life, after too many lost friends, and troubles, I did go more apolitical and ceased talking about politics on my personal social media. I will talk about them with good friends, on private groups and anonymously under this name. Too many people were drawing lines where they were making everyone they knew pass political litmus tests. I lost a friend for not being liberal enough even though she knew I was not a Trump supporter. I do agree with Republican friends on SOME matters or understand where they are coming from. I have one friend who is a Q supporter to friends who are very liberal and ones who share my "neither party" outlook.
This lady is on to something, when she says "I got a bridge to sell you"...She's right about the government lying to us, and the endless breaking of societal trust. She calls for treating people right again. She sees through the "divide and conquer" game.
I like her down to earth advice.
The news was making me really upset, and I was tired. Covid really changed things for me. There was this one online discussion where this one guy wrote that it was better to focus on things in life, you had some ability to make positive changes in. I thought, "That makes sense. What can I change or be involved in that will bring better things to life?" Lately it's a lot of art stuff. Politics to me became an upsetting dead end. I was in this continual state of anxiety, thinking about it, I struggle with poverty problems, so it's not a good mix.
Maybe some of us hit burn-out, being tired of living in outrage over crappy politicians. I believe Trump IS being used to dismantle the country, I am not sure if it is for deindustrialization or if the elites want to break the USA apart like they did with the Soviet Union. It's impossible for an average person to have all the answers. Sometimes I wish they would just LEAVE US ALONE, instead of doing things like turning off the power in Portugal and Spain. Sometimes I get funny thoughts that the politicians on both sides are such jerks, most of them, humanity would do better to go "no contact" with the lot of them.
I think ALL of them know the USA is collapsing but most Americans except maybe the poorest ones have figured it out. I'm of the mind the best way to go in life now is focusing on local community. That's easier said than done, social division is so extreme now. Find things to make you happy, I spent some time with one friend in that one small town I like to visit in my region this week. We need to build community again. Considering where things are going, it's imperative to focus on community ties and finding peace with people and figuring out something against the "divide and conquer" plans.