Hello reader, and welcome to the month of June …or shall I say Happy Pride Month! We can also say Happy Immigrant Heritage Month, Happy National Safety Month, Happy Men’s Mental Health Month, Happy PTSD Awareness Month.
However, I’m sure some of you never actually cared about those, but just wanted to say “where is *insert something making yourself feel superior* month!?”
So if that’s the case, I look forward to reading your never-satisfied-with-anything-in-life letter to the editor.
For the rest of you, enjoy whatever you choose to celebrate!
It’s been yet another month full of something, and I continue to wonder if we are actually winning?
I keep hearing that we’re going to, but somehow we haven’t won a war that didn’t need to happen, we aren’t winning on the price of goods, and we certainly aren’t winning at the gas pump.
But hey, they showed us liberals! Well, sort of, until this election.
I keep hearing how Republicans dominated at the polls, but as the votes continue to be counted in counties with populations larger than some states, that win seems to dwindle.
Even in races with Republicans in the lead, when you add up all the Democratic votes, the Republican hardly squeaks out.
I guess we’ll see what November brings!
I imagine it will bring a beautiful blue wave. And I say that after seeing everything going on (which is quite a lot).
Even with Republicans controlling every level of government across this nation, they still just seem so angry at literally everything. I can’t help but wonder: Is it because they’re coming to the realization that their party cannot actually govern? Is it the bitter reality of their own policies?
Is the party realizing it’s a dying breed — one that has managed to quash the middle class while screaming that anything helping citizens is socialism or communism?
It’s actually really interesting because according to them: Health care is socialism, education is socialism, child care is socialism, anything affordable where private interests aren’t killing you at the register is socialism.
Yet somehow, if we veer anywhere away from that, it’ll destroy the economy because it’s socialism.
Funny, because we’ve been doing capitalism for a while now and somehow we’re all in debt.
Our nation sits at $38 trillion in debt and growing. Not to mention the sitting president accounts for the largest contributor to that debt.
How’s that working out for you?
I’m not here saying we need socialism, communism, or whatever other system you spout off without actually understanding, but maybe, I don’t know, a system that actually works for everyone?
We live in a world where the rich keep getting richer, the sitting president continues to grow his wealth, while the rest of us continue to struggle.
Year after year, we’ve seen that wealth doesn’t trickle down.
Instead, it’s used to buy up housing markets so you can’t afford them. It’s used by mega corporations to squash out the mom-and-pop shops that once made America the greatest experiment on Earth.
Pretty soon, everyone will need some type of assistance. Either because they’ve been replaced by artificial intelligence or because four people own 95% of the country.
It is beyond frustrating as a younger person to watch where our country is headed.
I’m first generation. My family left their countries to achieve the American Dream. They did, through hard work and determination.
Yet today, you can’t afford to fill up your tank and pay rent without a dual income and roommates.
Then I hear: “Well, other places have it worse. You’re lucky you don’t live there. If it’s so much better, why don’t you move?”
Really?
Since when has being American been about stopping at what’s convenient or comfortable?
We don’t stop because other places are worse. If we did that, women wouldn’t vote, you couldn’t criticize the Idiot in Chief, you couldn’t do anything you enjoy today.
Our Constitution says “in order to form a more perfect union.”
We’re always striving for our nation to be better. To create a system where every citizen is taken care of, where children get excellent educations, where we fund science to become the most advanced we’ve ever been.
We were the land of opportunity, thought, and growth, not the land of, “Well, next door is worse, so oh well.”
Before you go off on “Biden this and Obama that,” your guy has been in office about two years. I’m pretty sure within the first year he was going to turn everything around?
I guess he did turn things around. We went from a growing economy and global respect to falling apart and becoming the laughing stock.
So maybe he didn’t lie after all?
Let’s see what November brings us. I pray it’s a country that will once again return to being that shining beacon across the globe, showing what a country by the people and for the people actually looks like.
Because we deserve better than this. And frankly, so does the world.
Andrew Taban is a former legislative staffer. “Democratic Voices” appears Tuesdays and rotates among several local Democrats.
