Is It Worth Saving?
I’ll be honest; lately, I’ve tried to avoid discussing politics. I don’t watch much TV anyway, but I am completely tuned out from the political process altogether. I know we need to stay locked in, but I’m just turned off from my government, our leaders, and institutions. As someone with some experience in campaigns, I can see through the corny slogans and ineffective messaging, and the scary part is that I’m not the only one.
The worst part is that this ineffectiveness is happening while white supremacists are trying to take over school boards and statehouses, looking to punish us for even merely asking for progress. As you’re reading this, they are preventing women nationwide from access to life-saving abortions. Black people are still getting the short end of the stick. Kids are still being kept in cages. At a certain point, the onslaught is so much that it’s become normal to people. It’s no secret that the ordinary isn’t enough to beat this, and the people are tired of being told it will.
I recently saw a tweet where a well-known Biden supporter said that the campaign needed to “turn it on,” I just thought to myself, “they just don’t get it.” While the election next year is critical, you must first deal with the macro issues of apathy and disunity. I don’t want to see someone as ignorant and hateful as Trump win, but a lot of people don’t care either way. A lot of well-meaning people just don’t give a damn, and if you’re being honest, you might disagree, but you’d understand.
You might read this and ask, “What about our democracy?” To that, a lot of us will answer back, “What democracy?” If it still includes being incarcerated, beaten, killed by police, or living in poverty, then we don’t want this democracy. You can’t convince people to save something that’s never existed for them. There lies the problem; you must convince people who’ve felt the worst of America that democracy is worth the effort.
It doesn’t help that our president is doing stuff that runs against the spirit of what he ran on four years ago. When I worked on the Biden campaign, I thought maybe this time was different, but I should’ve known better. This country gave police more funding without exhausting all efforts to pass reform legislation. Now, we’re giving Israel the green light to massacre Palestinians. While there have been some legislative successes, the arc of this nation hasn’t shifted direction, and if you can’t see that, you’re living in a bubble.
While I criticize this country a lot, it doesn’t mean I don’t want or think it could improve. I’m just warning those bigwigs (who get paid no matter how the economy looks) that you’re digging your grave if you keep organizing the old way. You keep thinking that we only need a change in advertising when people want a different product. I’m not just talking about an administration but the way of life in America.
I’ll leave you with this: if you’ve lived in hell for years, you don’t care if everyone joins you.
