Between Hope and Hopefulness

And where I find myself right now is in a deep place of frustration, disconnection, and despair about the prospects of America progressing in our work around democracy and the

American project. I think that for the last couple of years following the twenty twenty election, many people believed that the Republican Party was going to implode, right, that there was going to be some type of moment where the Republican Party was going to get some smelling salts and recognize that they were a part of a cult, and you know that they needed to cut ties with Donald

Trump and move on and rebuild. And in the now eight to nine years since Donald Trump entered into the political arena and now four years since he, you know, was in office, the only thing that has changed is that Donald Trump has gotten stronger, that his followers have gotten more fervent and more resolute in their desire to anoint Donald Trump as the second coming of Christ and as their martyr and as their you know, wielder of retribution.

The fact is that when I listen to interviews on the ground of people saying why they were caucusing for Donald Trump and like why he is their guy, logic does not play a role here. And logic and facts and figures are where progressives and Democrats love to live. Their love and commitment to Donald Trump isn't logical. It is about emotion. It is about the emotion that Donald Trump was able to tap into and exploit and expand

over the last eight to nine years. Donald Trump has told white Americans that they will win the battle against these people of color, against the demographic shift, against political correctness, against the little minuscule equity that has happened in this country over the last sixty years, with the civil rights movement, women's movement, abortion rights, affirmative action, all of these things that were put into place to make America more democratic

and equitable for all of its inhabitants, not just white men. And so Donald Trump now comes in and says, don't worry. You don't have to learn new terms. You don't have to respect different people, you don't have to provide dignity, you don't have to learn new skills, you don't have to expand in any way. I'm going to bring back

the good old days. I'm going to return us to the time when you didn't have to worry about what you said or how you said it, and you didn't have to consider anyone outside of your network or race, or religion or church or what have you. I'm going to bring back the good old days where white men reign supreme, so you don't have to feel small or like you're losing your country. Because we're powerful and together, we're going to take it back. We're going to take

it all back and then some. And then we're gonna make those who even had this fanciful idea around equity and inclusion and progress right, We're going to punish them for even believing and having the audacity to move outside of the stations that we have put them in. That's what they are cheering for. That's what they were ripping apart the Capitol building for. That's why they wear their

flag shirts. That's why they kiss the ground that this man walks on, because with the election of Barack Obama, with a passage of same sex marriage, with the introduction of gender identity and pronouns, and this world just changing so quickly. In front of them, Donald Trump said, don't worry, your pretty little blonde head, I'll fix it for you. And they said, thank God, because then I don't have to do anything. I don't have to learn anything. I

can just maintain. Because you see, folks, that's what I realize is really behind this idea around the quote unquote American dream. It's just about maintaining. It isn't really about going above and beyond. It isn't really about expansion, right, It is just about being able to have enough. Right, I have a good enough job, I own my home, I can send my kids to school, I can retire. That's it. And facts are facts, which is that that's not how this country or the world works anymore. And

why is that? Because of greed? Because capitalism only works for the top one percent and everyone else who thinks that they're a capitalist. I saw a really funny meme the other day that said, no, you're not a capitalist. You're just an exhausted, exploited worker. You're actually not benefiting from capitalism unless you are fucking Elon Musk or Bezos, you know, or Trump. Right, everyone else is just a worker,

just a cog in the machine. And because we have given so much of this country away to corporations and corporate interests, right, just maintaining that bare minimum of the

quote unquote American dream is now out of reach. And so when these people look around, they're not blaming the corporations of the CEOs, no, because they have been brainwashed into believing that those people have all these things, all of this wealth, all of this materialism, because they're smarter and they're better, and if they had the opportunity, they

would do the same. So you steal from people, right, You steal their wages, you steal their labor, you enrich yourselves, and then you make them worship the material that you have. It's genius. And then when the people start to get antsy about this gap, this chasm growing between them, right and those with so much those halves up there, well,

what do the habs do? Well, then they point to the people that are next to you and say, well, there's too many of them, and if they weren't there, you would still be comfortable, you would still be okay, because there isn't enough for everybody, and now that there's more of them, we need more policies to keep those people at bay, and then you'll have exactly what you had before. Just enough. It's all an illusion. It's a trick, and they've put us in the trick back. There is

more than enough. They're just fucking greedy, and what they've done is that they have been able through every generation to create an enemy for grieved white people to coalesce around. You see, for a brief period in time, those eight years of the Obama era, we were operating as a people from an abundance mindset. We can do big things, we can do hard things. We can get healthcare like

every other industrialized nation has right. We can create more access because me being able to marry a person of the same sex does not now devalue your marriage. It hasn't shifted anything. There. We are battling right now against this feeling, this sense of winner and loser, and there's no better person than Donald Trump to make people believe that in order for me to win, not only must that person over there lose, but they must suffer so

that my win feels more valuable. It isn't enough for white Evangelical Christians to say that they don't want to have an abortion right. They must punish. They must not only take away abortion, but punish anyone who even ever thought that they had control over their own bodies. It's not enough to say, oh, well, I don't care, like I don't want my kid reading the set of books, so I'm going to not allow it. No, all kids now can't read a certain type of book, even the

dictionary in Florida. And then I'm going to punish those that think that they actually have access to information that I'm not approving. We are up against so much, and to be honest, I personally am running out of steam and I'm not quite sure about how to create more. Because the day after the Iowa caucuses were decided in a way that we knew they were going to be decided,

I woke up with this sense of deep hopelessness. Like these people, these white Evangelical Christians, these white aggrieved conservative Americans, they want to destroy America, like they are done with democracy because democracy doesn't allow them to be on top anymore. They are done with the rule of law, because if the rule of law recognizes all people's rights, then they have none. So because they feel this great sense of law,

everything must be destroyed. And I'm at a place today where I'm like, I don't give a fuck, go ahead. I just hope I have the ability to leave in time, because I don't know who I'm trying to convince anymore. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know who I'm trying to convince and what we're actually trying to do. And I know you tune in and listen to me because you think that you know, most days I have something bright to say. Today I don't have

something bright to say. I'm gonna be real with you. We keep trying to fight these people's opinions and feelings with facts, and you just can't fight feelings with facts. It's not how it works. These people love Donald Trump. They will give up their own life and their own freedom to advance his cause and his mission. They showed us that on January sixth, twenty twenty one, and they showed us that now as the Republican primary, which is not even really a primary because they don't want anybody

but Donald Trump. And frankly, the people who said that they were quote unquote running for president don't want anybody other than Donald Trump. Otherwise they would make a very clear distinction between themselves and the person that is the perceived top of the ticket. All of this is a fargun conclusion. We know Donald Trump has the Republican nomination, and these people don't care if he is convicted of anything because it just makes their case even better. Look

what he's overcome. It just plays into his message and into his hands. So at what point do we look around and say, I'm done reacting to him, I'm done reacting to them. What do we actually want? Because I will tell you that the seventy percent that didn't vote for Donald Trump are not acting as if they actually want democracy either. So I find myself at a loss

right now what am I actually doing? Because if the seventy percent don't recognize the stakes at this fucking stage of the game, America is on life support and I'm like one of the physicians in the room that's just like, I don't think it's coming back. So maybe we should send in whatever a holy person they believe in, give them their last rites and pull the fucking plug, you know. And maybe I'm just having a bad day and tomorrow,

you know, will come out swinging. But I gotta be honest that the vacillation between the hopelessness and the hope is like giving me fucking whiplash, because to go through ten months of this shit with a current president that just does not have the support you see what folks failed to gather, or maybe they do, And maybe that's why there is this collective hopelessness, is that people did not vote for Joe Biden in twenty twenty. They voted

against Donald Trump. We were in a pandemic without fucking vaccines, and like we're sitting glued to our televisions every day to see whether or not we could go outside, or whether or not there was a new strand. As a nation and as a globe, our backs were literally up against the wall facing certain death, and that motherfucker was telling us to inject bleach. So, like, the choice seemed

pretty fucking clear. Either you're gonna go with the madman who's telling you to inject bleach, right, or you're gonna go with the elder statesman that like never really had a constituency. But at least he's not crazy. So what's the messaging now four years later, when people's money doesn't go as far as it used to, when we are in the middle in the middle of war in the

Middle East and on the wrong fucking side. You know, I just I don't know, you know, if I'm looking and I'm seeing that every thing is being thrown at this election, meaning every type of misinformation, every type of fucking thing that can ensure a loss, war, despair, the rising migrant crisis, you know, the climate change, the severe weather that was just experience inst in Iowa and around the country in different formats, like you can barely keep

your head above fucking water, literally and figuratively. So what are we going to do? This is where I find myself. These are the questions that I'm asking, what are we going to do? Because Donald Trump is not even inching. He is galloping towards the White House with a cadre of faithful followers with tiki torches and self made bombs and explosives behind him. They are coming, and I don't know if there's going to be anybody left at the gates to even put up a fight. What are we

willing to do? That's the question that I leave you with today. What are we willing to do? And is there enough of us that is willing to do anything? At this point? That is it for me today, dear friends on woke af AS always power to the people and to all the people, God willing some power. Dear friends. I'm worried. I'm worried. I'm worried that not enough people are getting woke, and I'm worried about not enough people are staying woke because right now I just want to

go right back to fucking sleep. I will be back tomorrow, though, I promise