I'm Pooped
Tomorrow is election day here in St. Paul. There are a number of things I care about on the ballot: our next mayor, rent control, and school board members. And yet today while I was thinking about when I was going to vote tomorrow, I found myself thinking “eh, maybe I won’t.” In truth, I am fine with pretty much any of the mayoral candidates that have a chance of winning. Melvin Carter has done OK. He’s a little too cozy with the cops (his dad was a cop in the city) but he seems to know what he’s doing, unlike the mayor across the river. Miki Frost seems like a good dude and there are a lot of signs supporting him in our neighborhood. So I am good with either frontrunner.
As far as rent control goes, I have zero hope of it passing. The campaign against it has been overwhelming. I cannot escape it. I’ve had several door knockers talk to me about how bad rent control is, despite having a freaking sign in my yard in support of it. I get mailers pretty much every day, sometimes multiple ones on the same day. All of this only makes me want to vote for it more, of course. If rich people are scared of something that they organize an effort like this then it must be good for us poors. Just a rule I live by.
Lately, whenever I think about politics I get a very BLAH feeling. It’s not that I don’t care. I do. But there is a hopelessness that I cannot seem to shake. I do not have the naivete of youth to help push me along anymore. I’m not optimistic about our future. I have seen this film before. I know how it ends. Democrats, who ran on progressive policies, were put into office by voters supporting those agendas. They control all 3 branches of government. There is no reason why they haven’t done more.
And yes, I acknowledge that the two bills that are maybe gonna pass are life-altering for some people who really need that help. That’s all good stuff. But my issue is that Democrats negotiated — with themselves! — to whittle the bill down from a $6 trillion figure to a paltry $1.75 trillion. Those numbers might sound incredibly high to you. They are. When your ship is sinking you need a big bucket.
We are one of the only countries that don’t have paid leave. And we will remain so. This is something that Estonia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Croatia, and Costa Rica, to name a few, have managed to figure out. Yet the “greatest” and wealthiest nation on Earth, can’t? Ludicrous. For all the talk about family values and children being the future, we don’t do nearly enough for them. Please watch this video below:
Another frustration I have with the party in power and specifically, Joe Biden, is that they are refusing to do something about college debt. He could cancel and forgive billions of dollars in college debt. Lord knows I would benefit. So would many of my friends. In fact, a friend of mine got his loans refunded after the school he attended was found to have defrauded their students. The money was life-altering. If you could have seen their faces when they told us the good news — it was like they won the lottery. The relief of having the burden removed was something special to see. I imagine millions of young people would feel the same way if their debt was forgiven. The crazy part is that Biden can do this today, without congress.
But the DEBT, Matt! Who is going to pay for all of this????
Yeah, this all sounds like a lot of money. And it is. It has to be. The reality of the situation is that it has to be big because middle- and lower-class people have been getting hosed for decades. We are owed back taxes. We are owed services and infrastructure that we should have had 30 years ago. If our country had stayed current with other wealthy nations around the world we wouldn’t need to play catch up. But since we do, we need to have some big-time spending.
Globally, countries spend a little less than $2 trillion each year on their militaries. We spend almost half of that, to the tune of around $800 billion EVERY YEAR. And yet we balk at a program that would cost less than a third of that in order to help out working families? That’s nuts.
The rich people in this country owe us a debt. And it’s time they repay it. Don’t let them tell you otherwise.
Over the last few weeks, I have wanted to write about so many things. How Trump and his cronies were clearly heavily involved in the January 6th insurrection. I wanted to write about the Texas abortion law and how insidious it is towards women. I wanted to write about all the grandstanding and BS involving Dr. Fauci and the supposed “puppy experiments” that isn’t true. But every time I sat down to draw up an outline, I found my mind wandering. “Does anyone care about this?”
There is no feeling worse for a writer than believing you are barking at the moon. Writing is a solitary act. You put words down and send them into the ether and hope someone reads them. But if you feel like no one cares about what you’re writing before you begin, it can be hard to get going.
There’s another element in this too. It’s that I’m not sure that I’m even interested in this stuff. We all know Trump is bad and the Republicans that pledge fealty to him are even worse. There are no redeeming qualities about Republicans. What can I really add to that dialogue?
Lastly, there’s a pervasive feeling of exhaustion. Keeping Trump from getting a second term was a lot of work and it was exhausting. It even led to an attack on our capital! And yet we barely survived it. For Republicans, everything is a battle. There is no compromise. There is no interest in governing. There is only power and the ability to use it for whoever pays you the most. Oh, and owning the libs.
I feel like Sisyphus. Every time we seem to take a step forward, the ball rolls back down the hill. Get Trump out of office? Abortion gets essentially banned in Texas. Elect Democrats to President and Congress? Enjoy the fights over COVID, CRT, and just about every other thing. Heck, the Democrats can’t even get their own members on the same page. It’s exhausting. It’s supposed to be. The more apathetic that politicians can make the general public feel, the greater their corruption can spread. And yes, I am speaking about both sides, though I do think there are far more decent people on the blue side than red.
And so, tomorrow, even though I probably won’t want to, I will go vote. I will stay engaged. I will continue to write articles that disappear into a void. I will keep speaking out about white supremacy and wealthy welfare queens. We cannot let them win. We are already so far behind. But we can change the game.
We just have to keep going.
