I'll tell it like it is: this is going to become a rant so just a trigger warning. I'll be going off on tangents and cussing here and there. So many tangents, in fact, that there will be some (*) footnotes. So, as the wise old man* who is our president and Democratic Party candidate likes to say, "here's the deal:"
I'm fleekin' tired of all the doom and gloom that seems to be coming from a handful of Kossacks in diaries and comments here.
I noticed it going down even before that "debate" from hell, which I acknowledge triggered a horrible week for all those who believe in democracy and inalienable human rights. I know the vibes have been bad lately, and it's OK to keep it real and cite the objective data, but what irritates me is the total lack of even brainstorming answers to these questions:
~What are we doing to change people's perceptions of Biden and TFG?
~What are we doing to get out the vote for The Democratic Ticket?
~What are we doing to prepare for and fight back against the Trump fascist regime that certain commenters believe is "inevitable?"
Why am I asking these questions to begin with? Yo Fleek Dogg, there's nothing we do, right? Aren't we fated to American fascism, getting ground under the heel of Putin and the global far right movement, and likely facing human extinction based on what the pundits and polls say at this time?
We are fated to this sort of Fleekin' slavery only if we disregard Timothy Snyder's sage advice. That is, if we, unlike the Ukrainian freedom fighters, choose to submit ourselves to the gish-galloping bullshit of aspiring authoritarians in advance.
You may quaver before the polls and the pundits that are telling you that losing your liberty is a done deal, but I choose to resist because this is America. I've spent roughly 3 of my 42 years abroad, but I now stand in the USA 🇺🇲 and dammit this is my country, my fleekin' home. I'm not giving up. I refuse to accept the doom that has been leaking out of the "mainstream" media into the rhetoric that has become the beating drums of some of my fellow Kossacks. Seeing others rolling over for the bullshit like this, on top of seeing fascists rising up to power in my homeland, has me more disgusted with being an American than ever.
Yet I am prouder than ever to be an American who represents the ideals of our constitutional democracy. That's because I see many of my other fellow Kossacks speaking up with Heather Cox-Richardson, Simon Rosenberg, Sonia Sotomayor, and yes Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ... there I fleekin' said it! Speaking up to say that we are Americans who refuse to accept the edict of six corrupt cowards who believe that a cruel demon god** created a handful of psychos who can do whatever the fuck they want to the rest of us thanks to that demon god "blessing" them with money and power! You know, standing against all that shit that goes against everything that our forefathers ranted about when they stood up to a fucking king in 1776, which is something we celebrated as a nation on this past Toughness Thursday!
Between my disgust and my pride lies my my vulnerability. As I write this, I know damn well that I would be among those sent to one of the Orange Felon's fantasy concentration camps with which he's threatened "illegals." I may be white and male, but I'm well aware that my very existence is "illegal" according to the toxic mindset of our modern day fascists because:
~I am neurodivergent. This is an insecurity of mine I'm coming forward with for the first time in a public forum as I am inspired by seeing other neurodivergent Kossacks stand up in these tough times. Now, I'll just say that I am just me as no one has ever been able to prove whether it's Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or simply something else going on with my fleekin' DNA that experts can't define. Whatever it is, I know there are plenty of school and medical records that the fascists could dig up from my past to condemn me to death.
~I could give a fuck less about what the fascists "think" because my brain naturally resists all social pressure and speaks up about what's actually going on around me! That's because of my neurodivergency, but even worse is the fact that when I speak up with my voice (not a keyboard) it does not make that stereotypical manly baritone sound. Therefore even if I were to just speak the bullshit party line, I damn well know that fascist bullies will beat the shit out of me because of the optics of how I say things. In bully-speak, I "talk funny" and they're too weak to accept that difference.
~I spent nearly 3 years in Asia during two different stints, and I married the love of my life from over there. Mrs. Fleek Dogg has since immigrated here with me, and even "worse" is the fact that we have jointly petitioned four of her adult children to immigrate here in the future (assuming the Democratic Ticket wins and we all work together back towards the welcoming version of America in the next few years).
Speaking of the third point, yeah I know it's all legal immigration stuff via the USCIS, but we all know that the fascists won't give a damn that my wife has become a naturalized US Citizen. They won't give a damn that future American employers would be happy to take on my educated and hardworking stepchildren if they were to get their petitions and visas approved.
If the fascists take full power here, they won't give a damn because having darker skin and an accent makes my beloved wife and children the feared and hated "other" just as much as my more subtle quirks make me the "other." My wife and I have worked hard to build up our lives here since we have been standing here together. We both have careers we are passionate about here, and we have recently bought a home where we have been spending the summer raising our kitty Chester and building an extensive flower and vegetable garden. We have built up this life in the same city that was getting bombed when our national anthem was inspired over 200 years ago. That's why it fleekin' bothers me so much to see other commenters and diarists here writing shit that implies that everything we are and all that we have built up is inevitably gonna get shit upon by assholes like Trump, Putin, Thomas, Alito, Leo and all the other dark money Federalist/Heritage goons.
Finally, please note that, as I rant, I am NOT doing any of the following:
-Calling out any fellow Kossacks who probably mean well by name.
-Claiming that anyone here is a Russian asset or Republican plant.
-Unskewing the polls or ignoring the reality, which is admittedly not looking good right now!
So what am I doing? I'm scared, but I'm not accepting doom before at least putting some effort into some solutions. That's why:
-I have 200 postcards to swing states on the way ... Hopefully they come before the end of my summer break
-I'm planning on checking out Biden-Harris's REACH app for text-banking
-I'm digging up all of my old friends and family's email addresses so I can send links about Project 2025 and the dystopia we face if we let nonsense "OMG he's too old and Kamala may have to take over" fears override our American duty to vote for democracy!
-I may even let go of my Xennial cringe and join the dreaded Tik-Tok App to start fighting back at all the disinfo (check out Robert Reich and his Inequality Media for an example of how this works).
This is my country, my fleekin' home, and I'm not giving up and accepting the doom!
Anyways, thanks for reading if you have somehow managed to make it to the end of this rant. This diary is a cathartic release of all I've been holding back since April, when a glitchy Microsoft Windows update led to a blue screen of death on my personal laptop. I've been lurking on Kos since then since I am wary of logging into an account tied to my personal politics on my public school district's laptop. All of the doom I've been hearing here over this past week, however, triggered me to log into my phone and battle autocorrect as I made a long comment. That has now been expanded into this diary, one that will evolve into some more thought-out pieces once I get this all off my chest in honor of my god-given rights on this 4th of July Weekend, 2024. I spent the holiday in paralysis at first given all the fear being expressed here before I started wising up and decided to stand up for my fleekin' ...I mean all our fucking rights in the Spirit of 1776. You know, our rights to exist as sovereign beings who deserve to pursue happiness rather than accept being some downtrodden subject of a sociopath who believe that their demonic deity granted them the divine right of kings oops I mean presidential immunity.
Footnotes:
*Kindly note that I'm framing "wise old man" in a positive way, not like the fucking rhetoric I keep on hearing that equates "OMG that dude looks and acts too old" to "OMG we are doomed to American Fascism and there's nothing we can do!"
**Please forgive my apparent blasphemy here if you are a true-hearted theist, whether you are Christian, Muslim, or Jewish. I sincerely believe that the fascists and authoritarians worship a demonic entity that pretends to be "god" ... can't put into any better words than This poetry right here!