Political Awareness: Wake Up and Pay Attention

I hate politics. I think most normal, sane people really do. Following the daily grind of the tit-for-tat, back-and-forth bickering and infighting amongst our elected officials as they attempt to pass any sort of meaningful legislation in our federal, state and/or local governments has become as painful and grueling to watch as it is tedious and horribly boring.

There was a time not so long ago, when I was a much younger man, when it seemed safe for one to just fall asleep at the wheel and allow yourself to be completely blind and apathetic to the workings of government. At least that’s how I felt about it. I remember being so jazzed about voting for Bill Clinton as an 18 year old back in the early 1990s — and just how completely over all of it I was by the time 2000 rolled around. I strongly suspect that’s how a lot of folks my age felt, which is likely how we ended up with eight years of George W Bush in the Whitehouse. Even though support for Clinton was pretty strong right up until the end of his second term, the Whitewaters and the Paula Joneses and the Monica Lewinskis of it all were all just a bit too much for all of us I fear, and I’ll just say it: it was really difficult to get excited about voting for Al Gore. No, he's not a bad guy, just not an easy guy to get excited about.

If you’re like me, you got woken up again in 2008 by a young and inspiring individual named Barack Obama. I never felt as though those of us who voted for and supported Obama deified him in the way that Tr**p’s supporters seem to do for him (looking at the insanity we are surrounded by currently, it’s not a stretch to note that the “maga” movement is as much a cult as it is an attempt at a fascist takeover.) But Obama was and is an inspiring figure nonetheless. I’ve heard some people I know try and downplay his charisma, his presence and his eloquence as something akin to the type of “cult of personality” we are experiencing currently, stating that just being able to “speak well” doesn’t make one a good a leader in and of itself. That may be true, but if the regular font of laughably transparent lies and garbled verbal-diarrhea we are forced to endure from the current "leadership" should teach us anything, it’s that words matter, language matters, truth matters! A leader who can express complex thoughts and communicate ideas is what truly inspires and motivates people, and that is something that really matters when it comes to real leadership.

The past couple of weeks I have seen a wave of people in my social media circles, not surprisingly most of them tend to fall into that same “Gen X” age bracket that I do, who seem to want to go back to sleep. They seem to yearn for a time when politics could be ignored by the masses, and we could all just sit comfortably in our homes (well, those of us who are blessed enough to have a place to call home) and watch our televisions, and try to imagine that everything will just somehow take care of itself. And maybe we’ll go vote, if we can get time off from work or, you know, actually break off the half an hour it takes to Google the candidates that are running on our local ballots and figure out who the hell we are supposed to vote for. Just so long as we don’t have to spend too much time thinking about it or worrying about it. Cries abound for our beloved social media platforms to go back to being places where we can mindlessly prattle on about professional sports teams and television shows, and whatever banal distractions there are to take our minds away from the very real decisions being made by very real people that affect our very real lives.

I have bad news for those folks: I’m sorry, but you gotta stay woke.

This is no time to forget about politics. This is no time to think of it all as watching paint dry, or insider baseball, or sausage making that we don’t have to pay any attention to. There is too much at stake — there is too much to lose! We’ve lost so much already, and this time we could really lose it all if we’re not careful. Our democracy, like our world and the stability of our entire society is hanging by such a delicate thread right now, and the threats to our freedom and our way of life are very real. If you don’t think so, you’re either not paying attention or you are part of the problem.

I've never been one to be overtly outspoken about my political views, though I've certainly never gone out of my way to hide them either. People who know me well enough should know where I stand, but that's just not enough any more. This is our calling. This is our time to raise our voices and be heard. I'm speaking to people of my generation, but I'm also speaking to everyone who sees the very real threats to freedom and democracy happening right before our eyes and feels helpless to do anything about it. You can do something - there's lots that we can do if we overcome our fears and our apathies and speak out for what we know is right. I know I will get some pushback from some people for what I have to say, but I can't let that stop me from standing up for what I know in my heart is right: and that is doing everything that I am capable of doing to see to it that this sham-president and his enablers get shut down HARD this November!

Lines have been drawn in the sand. I didn’t draw them, but I know on which side I will stand. While I may not love politics, I love myself and I love my family and I will do whatever I have to do to ensure that we have some sort of a shot at that American dream that we’ve all been chasing since each of our ancestors were dragged over here on whichever rat-infested boat they came in on generations ago. In some ways, the pains we are facing right now are symptomatic of a disease we all knew was right in front of us all this time - a festering sore that just can't be denied or ignored anymore.

Perhaps it will somehow all have been worth it if we can presently stay woke and alert long enough to enact some actual change - that our children's and our children's children's lives will be greater than anything we could ever have dreamt for ourselves.