November 1, 2024
I decided to take a break from Social Media, IG, Threads and Facebook. I go back and forth as to whether it is even a good space to be in. We all have a lot going on in our lives and some days, if I could just not read the comments, I’d be okay and it would be a more enjoyable place. Currently being an election season, doesn’t make it any easier.
The hate, the vitriol, the lies, the abuse, the attaches on every day descent humans from others, it more than I can bear some days with all that is in my life and has happened in the last few years. I’m not here to corner the market on a ‘poor me’ scenario or say I’ve got it worse than other, I don’t.
Most of you know me. You know how I was raised, where I was raised and we went to church together. Some of you may think that because I grew up in church, got a little radical religiously in high school that you thought I might have become a conservative. Well, I’m pretty sure you no now that’s not the case if you pay attention or have paid attention to my posts here. If you weren’t paying attain, SURPRISE! I’m a bleeding heart liberal, life long Democrat. Just like my Mom, my Dad and his father my Grandpa Green.
I know there is great division. I know that there are differences today that seem or feel so extreme that there is no going back. That our culture and our world is changing. It is happening naturally and in some ways organically and in my opinion can’t be stopped any easier than the rotation of the sun.
We can live in fear, which I know many do because of how they have responded over the last 4-8 years. Fear that has been manufactured far beyond any reality.
Earlier this week on the post of a friend from high school, I saw someone respond to someone on Facebook who unfriended and blocked me a month or so ago. So I couldn’t see her comment but the reply was;
So did she say that people hate her? Not knowing for sure or who “they” might be I had a thought. Who hates who? Is she projecting her own self hatred outward in an effort to ease her belief, her fear, how she see’s or wants to see the world. When I think of the person I’ve known since kindergarten, who I thought she was, the person that is raging through Facebook is not who I thought I knew. Fun loving, crazy, outgoing, smiling, laughing, what happened to that.
She is also famously the one who asked the question on a post of mine,
“Not racist and not a Harris supporter. What happened to the notion of not calling people names and being nice to one another? Just asking…”
This question from a Trump supporter. I didn’t respond in the way that I wanted to, asking her to go ask her candidate that question and don’t make me list the names he’s called everyone from family, former staff, Generals, etc. Seriously? Seriously she doesn’t in her vacuum bubble of news doesn’t hear him call everyone, stupid and a whole list of derogatory names?
This more than anything completely absolutely gob smacks me. How can there be anything, any element redeemable with this man that I don’t hear the horrible things he has said and through the legal system found guilty of so, so many things that I’d hope that NO one wants responsible for the safety and security of our country.
The question that would never be answered, do you have woman, children, LGBTQ, Black, Brown, PEOPLE in your life that you care about? There is nothing he stands for that in some way won’t impact every single person in American except, him, Musk and the Kushner’s.
This is manipulations at its finest. How did it not happen to me? How was I not drawn in to his level of division and hatred of the US? Fear. I’m not afraid of tomorrow, my shadow or anything. And even thinking about a potential second trump Presidency, it’s not fear because I have been listening and know what he will do. I’m pissed. I’m angry. But afraid, no. No fear.
I actually think, as I sit here right now writing these words that even with him in office a second time and the few pulling his strings, I do think that there are poetical guardrails out there that we are not aware of and that there just aren’t enough riding his crazy train to let happen what could happen. But that there will be damage done to the US internationally, economically and environmentally that will take years to repair.
Side bar. One day, maybe just maybe she will admit that she is a racist. I still have work to do in that realm but have done enough to know, the goal the concept is “I’m not a racist”. For me it’s I am a racist and I am and will do everything I can to learn and be anti-racist.
Day one of break
The Mother Jones headline, “Trump Called for Placing Liz Cheney Before Guns “Trained on Her Face.” But what about “Garbage”? I’m 100% sure that even this will not deter some supporters and they will vote for him. His campaign I think has already said that’s not what he said. So then that video and audio recording of him sitting there next to Carlson, saying “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her,”, He didn’t say that? How is it that I heard that? How is it that for me that is reprehensible, even for someone to say that about him, yet he can say it.
I follow a lot of people on Social Media. I will admit more that align with my political viewpoint, but I’m not in a vacuum bubble either. I read the other side as much as I can. I have this thing in me that when listening to some, I can’t stomach it. I can read into their tone and too often I just can’t listen. I listen to people who reference history, tell the whole story. Offer source’s and resources to verify what they are staying. I’ve never taken anything at face value. All too often it feels to me that TFG supporters take what he says, face value as fact and truth. Rarely does the man speak truth. And if you listen carefully, everything he tries to blame on someone else, he has actually done it and in many cases has been found guilty in a court of law.
Leigh McGowan said it better than anyone the other day. Something I and others have been saying in different ways for years. It is this; “I think it’s weird that we’re asking Kamala to answer for what Joe Biden said, be we’re not asking Trump to answer for what Trump says.” All media has failed us since that day in 2015 when he ascended that stupid escalator.
Day five, election day
Listening today, trying not to, to know where we will be going. Forward or back. Back who knows how many years, 50, 100, 200?
**
I just heard someone say, “being on the right side of history.” Does history matter to you? Does history have any impact on you? If you say no to both, I’m going to try to be nice here. If you answer no to both, I think that your right to vote to participate in democracy should be questioned and revoked. I’m not the smartest person ever in any room, I’m not naive or ignorant. To say that history doesn’t matter or hasn’t had an impact, ignorant doesn’t define it.
After the election of 2016, I felt my understanding of morality and ethical behavior wain. How did this liberal all of a sudden feel like an extreme conservative? How did my view of what was appropriate for the highest office in the land all of a sudden become a moral high ground that was beyond reproach. Actually, I don’t believe that my moral compass is above or beyond reproach. It is appropriate and oddly enough, I would have thought those on the other side would have been more offended or appalled than I was with there language, the innuendo, and the acceptance of name calling and trash talk.
About 5 times a day I think of the question asked of me from a Trump supporter that I’ve known since Kindergarten. Yes I am repeating it because it’s beyond explanation or reason,
“What happened to the notion of not calling people names and being nice to one another? Just asking…”
So do they not hear it? Is their anger and hatred of diversity of humans so extreme that hearing name calling is selective? Does a double standard impact your auditory factor? Oh how badly I wanted to say, fuck you! Ask your racist misogynistic leader why the hell it’s okay for him to call ANYONE a name. WTAF! I did not. I tried to be reasonable, logical, question it as well. A couple weeks later when I replied to a very angry post about an Olympic female boxer, some facts. I was unfriended and blocked.
I do think of this several times a day. Seriously, ‘not calling people names’? I honestly do not think that I need to list the many names her leader called, Hilary, Kamala, anyone who disagreed with him.