The Hits Just Keep Coming...

Teal Ribbon for Anxiety

...and I'm not even in the crosshairs (yet).

Note: euphemisms and pronouns without referents used below are to keep myself from being shadowbanned by the algo.

I'm having a very high-anxiety day, and I would say it's for no particular reason, but the reasons (or triggers) are so obvious as to be laughable.

That is, they'd be laughable if they weren't also fucking terrifying.

"If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about," say the sycophantic bootlickers. Except that "nothing wrong" changes on a whim, usually daily, sometimes hourly. I imagine they'd consider this post to be "something wrong," since I'm not fawning over the batshit lunacy coming out of The Other Washington through Truth Social or Twitter. Excuse me, "through X." I'm pretty good with preferred names and pronouns, but that one I struggle with.

And those who "finally see what he is" because of a single racist post, what in the actual fuck? Sanctioned killings weren't enough for you? How about all the atrocities on That One Island™? Grabbing another country's oil and selling it for personal gain? No? I mean, I guess I'm glad you finally get it, at least to some extent. But for fuck's sake, people.

"But Obummer deported..." or "But Obama bombed..." Yes. He did. That was bad, too. But he's not the one in power now, and he was subject to ridiculous amounts of scrutiny over things like a tan suit or his wife's bare shoulders. And he doesn't, even now, have the kind of fan club that forgives all - or declares there's nothing to forgive - no matter how outrageous.

Andplusalso, the "oh, but he didn't make it, he just reposted it" folks can take a flying leap. That's not actually better, you know, that the putative leader of the country/"free world" (it's clearly not) didn't make a racist meme; he just shared it.

Not.

Better.

This person has the power to obliterate most of the life on the planet, is clearly losing his marbles (whether due to age or illness or whatever is immaterial), and that's on top of his already massive, petulant, and racist egomania. But y'all are okay with that? Because he hates all the right people, is that correct?

Just checking.

I would also like to smack all the people I see smugly saying things like, "Of course the kids are protesting, anything to get out of school!" or "Yeah, they're only protesting because their teachers have indoctrinated them into woke ideology. You wouldn't see our kids protesting!"

My dude, you guys tried to get one of our high school principals fired because he stated on his personal Instagram that common sense gun laws could've saved Charlie Kirk. Your kids were out there protesting every damn day because you feared a professional might treat them differently if he knew their parents were gun nuts proponents of the Second Amendment. Which he would not have, because he is, in fact, a professional who just wants to keep students safe. But maybe that's because - after a famous MN murder - you think the 2A  (and the first) only applies to you.

Those kids out there protesting? Yeah, I imagine a few are seeing it as a Get Out of School Free Card, because they're humans. But from what I have seen, most of them are just teenagers who have been encouraged to actually think rather than parrot. Shocking, I know. But some of them - most of them, I hope - have that pesky condition known as Empathy for People Not Just Like Them. Maybe they see more clearly than some of their elders.

Because y'know what? I know people who are afraid to go to the grocery store. Not because they have done anything wrong. Not because they are undocumented. But simply because they might be perceived as such, due to darker skin or an accent. 

As stated above, I'm not in the crosshairs (yet). Because I am a cishet, white, native-born, English-speaking person. Of course, I'm also fat, female, politically progressive, neurodivergent, ethnically Jewish, a single parent, work with disenfranchised people, try to behave decently with everyone (regardless of their gender, sexuality, color, national origin, etc.), and so very tired of the firehose of awfulness. 

So that could change.

Writing this out usually makes me feel better, except for that time almost a year ago. And today, evidently, though it could still happen.