Way back in 2020, when Donald Trump and Joe Biden were vying for the office of President of the United States, one of the things that was claimed by Democrats was that Donald Trump posed a grave threat to Democracy and the only way to save it was to elect Joe Biden. Well, we did that and now Joe Biden is President. Now as the 2024 election is approaching, there are Democrats who want to keep Donald Trump from running for President entirely by keeping him off the ballots of as many states as possible.

Regardless of your personal feelings toward Donald Trump, isn't keeping him off the ballot and not letting the people decide the opposite of Democracy?

But perhaps you think that people are too stupid to be allowed to pick their own leaders and while I think that's a valid argument, it's still anti-democratic.

But then, have we ever really picked our own leaders, we have two political parties that give us a choice between 2 people. Haven't the political parties really picked our leaders for us, and we just decide which parties' choice we want, and it doesn't really matter which one we pick.

Now that I'm really thinking about it, we've never lived in a democracy to begin with so whether Donald Trump's name is on the ballot or not it really doesn't matter and anyone who claims you need to do something to save Democracy is lying to you.

Looking back, those eighteen months felt like decades. And it wasn’t a calm, easy time, the kind of time that can verge on boring when one has to seek excitement to feel the old, pink pump chugging.

Perhaps it was a carried-over feeling from the previous few years when upheaval uncovered not the rich soil in which to plant a prosperous future but rather a boggy stench of slush that we squeegeed into the new decade.

Spoiled elder youths muddied the Slip-n-Slide, leaving a sopping green mess to mark us, we of the forgotten generation, we that promised ourselves we would throw the whole thing out before we let it get ruined. To be fair, one could suppose that the other side viewed themselves much the same way, and maybe they were trying to throw it all out just as we’d promised ourselves. They almost succeeded.

A mess soothes, its familiarity securing one’s perimeters, one’s capacity to withstand and withhold; but it’s an amoeboid barrier. We control what passes through, stifling the variety of stimuli until we believe that nothing exists besides what we allow in. In those boggy months, stagnating in what seemed a perpetual storm of misinformation and fomented fear, the variety of stimuli decreased further. We were left to choose between the horrifying truth and the horrible, sometimes-intentionally inaccurate, lie; made to feel unbalanced when considering rational ideas, unhinged when expressing genuine concern for devastating prospects.

And when the others, those that drained the water leaving nothing but the unskimmed muck behind, began to bear the brunt of their ignorance and belittling, they blamed the government for their condition.

These—who perceived a piece of cloth over one’s face more devastating than the deadly condition that the cloth prevented—didn’t blame the entire government, each branch given a list of grievances with specific demands to improve our collective situation. No, it was simultaneously more pointed and amorphous. Only certain political factions were labeled “government.” And with that label came the modifiers “corrupt” and “elite" and “oppressive.” They twisted suggestions and mandates for safety into evidence of control and barbarism and worst of all in their estimations, anti-nationalism. Their personal identities and love of self, tied so closely to their sense of entitlement by virtue of being born in an arbitrarily and violently formed area of the planet, they could no longer distinguish between their own needs and the desires of the ruling class. And, don't misunderstand: there was a ruling class.

There, costumed in the fineries of their respective statuses—half-naked and painted, a malignant manifestation of the crux of American cultural appropriation; decked with dingy denim and beer-scented beards and bras; or boringly quaffed with cookie-cutter business casual slacks and loafers—they stormed the castle of perceived slights and imaginary injustices.

They called for the Deaths not only of those who represented and fought for disparate ideological legislation (women and minorities, mostly), but also of those whose recent words and actions weren’t harsh or vainglorious enough for these self-appointed liberators of the most liberated and protected sector of the population to justify their violence (up to and including the VP of the USA).

They, who railed against peaceful protests of police brutality and flew black, white and blue flags on their trucks as they rammed pedestrians, beat officers of peace with the emblem of the country, defiled red stripes with the red blood of their protectors in a vain presumption of oppression. Clamoring for chaos in the guise of liberty, they split symbols of Freedom like firewood and shattered declarative encasements, exposing fragile parchments of history to the mired air of the moment.

Boasting their conquest, they posted photos and videos of their fight against the fair and legal election of a president. Unable to accept that they were not in fact the silent majority, they transformed themselves into the worst of what they purported to despise: lawless, unjust, uncivilized, violent. They returned to work with a feeling of elation, of being seen and heard, of making a difference for the betterment of the country, incapable of understanding that they would not be the heroes of the hour. And nothing came of the boastful promises; none of the rallies they threatened formed. None of the representatives they harangued were unseated or prosecuted for fictitious crimes. No new macabre conjectures made their way to mainstream news: no gay frogs, no pizza parlor cults, no reptilian extraterrestrials running the shadow government.

The following year, January 6th became a meme. The devastation, death, destruction, and defilement transposed into another e-symbol of self-congratulatory virtue. When the indictments began, propelled by self-recorded evidence of high crimes, it wasn’t front-page news. No hordes of cameras waited outside halls of justice for the details of the trials. No 60-minute specials laid bare the intriguing back story of the individuals in an attempt to understand the psychological underpinnings of these crazed devotees.

Perhaps the lack of coverage was for the best. Relegated once again to snapping toothlessly, stuck in a swampy pit of their own making, without a trainer to praise their myopic destitute desires and violently asinine actions, they sank more slowly and more quietly than they had risen. Still there, in the murky shallows they wait, hoping to once again be relevant, even if their only contribution is destruction.

Two weeks in, and Price is slumping

The gas is cheap, but no one's pumping

CEOs resigned and dumping;

We don't want to die for the Dow.

POTUS says two weeks suffice,

And he'll help states if they play nice

Lieutenants claim they'll sacrifice, but

We won't die for the Dow.

Nurses burn like Salem witches

For asking for clean, sterile stitches

Scientists wind up in ditches;

We won't die for the Dow!

"Aegrescit medendo!"

While Doctors' protests crescendo

And Corporatists thrive on innuendo, but

We won't Die for the Dow!

While fairly sure that this will end

And hoping not to break but bend

We solemnly our lives defend, for

WE WON'T DIE FOR THE DOW!

(3/25/2020)

Ignorance is bliss

To only those who sit

In the comfort of white

Privileged fences

You cannot pretend

That you're better than them

While you perpetuate hate

Under guise of "just rest"

Looking away

Won't erase what's been done

But it will make it easier

To forget it's all wrong

To forget that your neighbours

Don't just live down the block

If we don't care for our people

There's no reason to stop

Power will keep tripping

Bombs will be still dropped and

Our families will keep on dying

Unless we all take watch

Stare at it until it hurts

Because it fucking should

Bear witness to the wounds that you

Ignored like they didn't exist

I feel each shockwave

It rips through my soul

My ancestors are mourning

They beg for no more

No more babies should die and

No more parents should cry

No more prayers said at night

Asking just to survive

It shouldn't be radical

For our future to be

Bright, full of hope

And empathy

For no human is free

Until we all are you see

There's no celebrating life

While killing carelessly

The blood on our hands

Will never run clean

Yet we keep on cheering

For the "American Dream"

For ignorance is bliss

For only those that sit

In the comfort of white

Privileged fences

#FreePalestine