Warning: Doom pilling ahead. Read with caution if you retain any hope for bettering the US through “democratic” means.
Am I on crazy pills? This question or feeling is always running through my mind for the last few years specifically but really the last solid decade and longer in which I’ve been a “productive adult!” living in the world.
My first presidential election I could vote in was 2008. I voted for Obama in the primaries and for president. Within a year or so I can’t say I regretted it because, really, wtf was the alternative? If you consider the finalists to be Hillary, Barrack, and John McCain… shoot me now. But Obama was implying a shitload of stuff. Free healthcare finally! We have 60 senators to burst the (made up by hey!) filibuster-proof limit. What, you only need 50 and just throw the filibuster out? Well we have 60!…. ! Right?
I was basically a naive 20ish year old taken for a fucking ride by the biggest liar and scam artist you can imagine. Of course it wasn’t just me it was probably every young person under like 30 at the time who actually wanted the shit Obama promised (and then immediately balled up and threw into the trash bin).
After that shit I couldn’t tell you what happened for the next 6-7 years of his shithole presidency. I turned my brain off. Something I can realize now was a privilege not everyone gets. But it’s what happened regardless. Probably exactly the intended effect. Shut down all the left leaning (or whatever the fuck I was at 19/20 who can really say? I did know I wanted healthcare and to not be drafted into a war) elements of the democratic voting base, shove them all away, and basically cause Trump to come in years later. It wasn’t only that, but it certainly didn’t help when you open-ass blast all the younger people and then come back in 8 years pleading them to vote for a warmonger and not the cheeto guy.
Anyway, fast forward though and look back at the last 15 years. When has ANY government, and especially the federal and states (to lesser degree but still), been listening to the goddamn people? Abortion has always been a policy that polls around 70-80% in the pro-abortion/pro-choice (whatever wording) column. It’s just one of those issues many people might be personally… whatever… towards but every woman and most men realize it’s necessary to keep it legal even if you object to some (imo bullshit) “moral questions” around abortion. It cannot be restricted or you end up with “the good women” (using the right wing wording and logic) dying and/or suffering due to complications that should result in a doctor ending the pregnancy. It’s just something which has to fucking happen sometimes and it doesn’t matter how much you suck off Jesus or not. This necessarily requires allowing elective abortions too. Otherwise you’ll have cops/prosecutors crawling inside what goes on inside the doctor’s office. And that is where we have arrived. And now many right wingers, especially the morons who will suffer most from these policies, are going OH SHIT BUT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO OWN THE LIBS BY KILLING BLACK WOMEN AND WHOOORRRREES NOT ME! I’ll reserve my sympathies for a case by case basis, although broadly I do remain sympathetic because they were as brainwashed as anyone. Probably still are.
When has the government done popular policy like legalizing or at the least decriminalizing drugs (and not just weed which is still not even legalized). Reducing the military and cops? Providing college free of cost? Healthcare for all? These are all things which pass the popularity meter of 50% and are also DUH NO FUCKING SHIT easy win policies. No one (with a soul- fuck the hogs) wants to keep fucking seeing black dudes getting shot or choked to death by cops. No one wants to keep reading about and fearing themselves the bankruptcy and random violence of the healthcare system denying them treatment.
I just don’t see how anyone… gives a shit? To put it nicely. About these votes. “Giving a shit” to me, at this point, is basically doing a lot of stuff which I quite literally cannot type here. But it’s not happening. And yes it’s exactly whatever thing you’re thinking.
The federal and state governments are not legitimate and haven’t been since probably the beginning of this shitfest. But in the current day, for sure, absolutely not legitimate. Does anyone have a shred of faith that if this vote goes like 60% in the “make abortion legal” direction that the Rs won’t simply find a way to undermine that democratic vote? They’ve done it before! They do it all the time! I mean how many times do we gotta go THIS IS THE ONE THIS IS THE LAST STAND THIS IS IMPORTANT before people either shut up and accept their fate as serfs and objects owned by capitalists who control the politicians or actually do something? And no, voting when you already know the results will never be properly honored, isn’t really doing something. In fact an argument is easily made that they allow you to vote precisely to feel like it does matter and to keep stringing you along. It is hard to break that cycle and accept you are effectively powerless…….. within their rules anyway. The rules that they break at a whim anyway. What if a bunch of normal people started breaking the rules too? Hmm. I dunno. In the mean time I guess I’ll just keep being sad and completely rotted with doom.