Writings of an Unhinged Leftist
This past Wednesday or Thursday, Trump’s regime issued an executive order criminalizing homelessness, addiction, and mental illness, and directed states to round them up to keep the population safe. He’s using the same rhetoric he used to justify targeting immigrants, the atrocities of which are still mounting.
There’s a concentration camp in Florida, with more states requesting them. People have been taking selfies in front of the “Alligator Alcatraz” sign, which is wild.
People think Hitler started targeting folks who were Jewish. But that’s not how it started. It started exactly the same way Trump has started—targeting immigrants, homeless folks, people deemed mentally ill, and the LGBTQIA+ community. History is repeating, and at least 1/3rd of this country is celebrating the suffering of others.
I can’t fathom how we’re here. Logically, I can pull some pieces out. I know Manifest Destiny did a lot of damage to this country. It’s the idea that the people in the US are god’s chosen people, and that they deserve paradise here.
I know they also equate being rich with being a good person. It’s the belief that their god has favored that person, allowing them to become rich. But since most of them are not rich, they believe they’re only temporarily poor, and that it’s not their fault they’re poor. Which makes it easy for someone to come in and tell them that it’s not their fault, but the fault of immigrants, or homeless folks, or the LGBTQIA+ community. It’s easier for them to believe that than to believe their poorness is some personal failing on their part.
To be fair, being poor isn’t a personal failing, but the fault of government systems that take too much without giving enough in return. The status quo hasn’t been good for a long time. Capitalism feeds the greed of the rich while continuously beating down the poor, making people feel hopeless. But that’s too much to undo and fix, and it’s easier to just blame some innocent group for all their woes.
But while I can logic some of that out, there’s some fundamental level where I just don’t understand. I don’t get it. I don’t get how we’re here. I don’t get the celebration of the suffering of others. This idea that empathy is a sin is horrific. I think empathy is one of the greatest things humans can offer.
As my friend said, empathy can be weaponized and manipulated, sure, but it is the backbone of any intelligent species. Empathy is not a sin, and it never will be.
There’s also the stories coming out of Gaza. Israel is committing a horrific genocide against Palestine. People are starving. People are dying. Israel is shooting people going to aid camps to get food. Israel is arresting aid groups and activists attempting to get to Palestine to help. We’re watching a genocide unfold right in front of us, and the world is still just shrugging it off.
Meanwhile, the US is still sending support to Israel, and labeling anyone who speaks out against Israel’s actions as being antisemitic.
I can’t fathom how we’re here. I can’t fathom that this is the world we’re living in now. We have so many resources at our fingertips, we could build an empathetic society that supports everyone, and ensures free access to housing, food, water, healthcare, and transportation across the world, and instead we throw people in cages, we torture people, we kill them, and laugh at their misfortune. That same group who believes their god has favored the rich, believe that those folks being killed, tortured, and imprisoned is an afront to their god, and they deserve to be punished.
That line of thinking is dangerous, and horrific. But here we are, trapped in a society that favors torturing anyone who isn’t a rich white straight cis man.
Scared
I’m scared. I’m scared of my country and for my country. I’m grieving the loss of the country we could have been. Even if Trump is removed right now, the damage he’s done will take years to fix.
I’m scared for every person it disappears off the streets to an unknown fate.
I’m scared for my god kids, and any kid having to grow up during all of this. I’m scared for their futures.
I’m scared for my friends and family, and for all of the gut wrenching stories of people suffering.
Just recently there was a woman in Tennessee denied pre-natal care because she’s unmarried.
My heart aches for the woman, and her family, who was used as an incubator in Georgia, kept alive with machines because she was pregnant. My heart aches for the kids who were washed away in the floods in Texas because the flash flood warnings never reached them. My heart aches for the innocent immigrants being targeted and used as political pawns, sent to concentration camps and may never return. My heart aches for the people in Gaza who are being cruelly murdered by Israel.
The horrors this administration has done are unforgivable. I think everyone living through this will carry the scars of it all for years.
I’m also scared about moving. It seems so ridiculous in the grand scheme of everything else going on. So many people have it much worse than I do, so what do I have to complain about?
But the reality of it is that I am scared. I like my routines, I find comfort in them, and everything is about to be upended. I get overwhelmed so easily. Even a doctor’s visit takes a week to recover from.
My friend in Canada is letting me live with her, but what if I’m too messy, or too much. I live in organized chaos most of the time. I don’t see the point of making a bed. I have piles of papers, but I know where everything is. I’m quirky, and shy. I have social anxiety disorder. I’m an artist who is bad at making money, but great at making art.
What if I’m not good enough? What if I’m just the wrong fit? What are the rules I don’t know to ask about?
I’d looked into the self-employed persons program in Canada. I would qualify. I have a BA in studio art from Christopher Newport University. I worked at an art museum as the visitor services supervisor, and then manager, before stepping down in May of 2019 to pursue my art career full time. I worked there a total of 22 years, 15-ish was full time. I’ve been a full time artist for 6 years. As an added bonus, I’ve been doing martial arts for 11-ish years, teaching it for about 9 or 10 years. I would qualify with what I estimated to be 81 points (out of a potential 100). But I just found out they paused that program in April of 2024.
In lieu of that program not being open, the only option I really have is requesting asylum. The uncertainty of it all scares me.
I’m scared of leaving the familiar. I don’t always fit in societies in a way that people want me to. I’m like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. I’ve somehow found a lot of great people who make me feel welcome, my friend in Canada included. But what if I screw it up?
I overthink too much, which has never done me any favors. I’m just trying to figure out how to navigate an unknown, but my anxieties are getting the better of me.
I’m leaving before borders are closed, and before I’m going to be rounded up too. But I’ll still have to figure out how to put the pieces of my life back together in a new country.
In August, I’ll be traveling to visit friends and family before I leave. I’ll be home for a total of 5 days for the entire month. And then August 31st I fly out to Ottawa, and leave my country, maybe forever.
In a few days everything will change.
And I’m sad. And I’m scared.