“Keep America great”

“Keep America great”

Right now, I can’t watch MSU or U-M football, I can’t go see a movie at the State Theatre, I haven’t been to a concert in almost a year, my neighborhood is swaddled in flags made in China that aren’t the Chinese flag, I haven’t eaten inside a restaurant since February, some of my retirement stocks lost almost 40% of their value, I can’t find certain types of food and drink in the stores, the price of toilet paper has exploded, we are running out of coin currency in circulation, and I haven’t set foot in a classroom since 11 March, which is the last time I saw my friend and colleague alive.

“Keep America great”

In the United States, there is minority rule from an ignorant off-white supremacist cult leader and the rich and powerful people who can misuse the law and his followers to become more rich and powerful, while people that don’t look like them are being shot in the streets or their homes, or being put in concentration camps where infants wail for their absent parents under thin blankets and Home Depot lighting until the cries turn into a low hum. 

“Keep America great”

Day after day, the death toll of 9/11 after 9/11 continues, a viral slow motion churn of friends and neighbors that could fill three Ford Fields, something to be written about in the first drafts of history books likely to be censored by those under the thrall of the rich and powerful, who are largely immune from the impacts of rising sea levels and rising temperatures and rising levels of microplastics in our food and drink. Small businesses close, communities contract and fracture, and despite copious amounts of valid and reliable evidence to support everything I’ve just shit out of my word hole, more than a third of Americans think I’m on the wrong team, with 3% of that third actively plotting ways that I should die in order to Keep America great.

I just want you to understand why I personally feel more depressed and anxious than usual, why I find it hard to concentrate and communicate, and that it’s perfectly normal to think and feel this way under these terms and conditions, these circumstances of the moment. And if, upon reflection, you think and feel similarly, know that you’re not alone, and know we only need 3% of the population to start actions to make our lives better and the lives of those around us for a genuine movement to start. It starts with donating your time and resources to those who need those things more than you, but voting — ideally for caring and intelligent women, per the research — is one step in that process, and I hope you vote in the next few weeks. After all, what other tools do we have to help keep America great?