Lately, I'm seeing things I never thought I'd see in government: the blatant attacks on immigrants, both documented and undocumented, the McCarthyist rooting out of "DEI" in every institution, which is just code for purging black and brown employees and influences. It's like a fire hose of incompetence, hate, and grift. We make all these jokes and memes to deal with the madness of it all, the absurdity of an administration that seems to have only two settings - either stepping on the Sideshow Bob rake every day or pursuing the most degrading violations of rights. The fact that we're arguing online and in Congress whether the Constitution applies to noncitizens is insanity.
"It's like a fire hose of incompetence, hate, and grift."
I'm also seeing unbelievable things in social discourse. All this cultish devotion to a clearly corrupt administration trickles down into excuses for all sorts of hate speech. I'm old enough to remember the early days of the internet, chat rooms and MySpace, when it was like the Final Frontier online, an entirely new territory with no rules, and your truly never new what you might find in some of those threads. I remember the first moderators trying to tame that landscape and kicking people out left and right for abusive language. Now, I've had to quit Twitter for good. I used to cherish it for all the teachers and writers and publishing events, but it's become a hellscape. I stopped posting any text or pictures at all when it became clear that the app was becoming a word and image farm for AI. For a while after that, I just sort of lurked and followed my friends, but then, invariably, every thread led to the most racist nonsense and hateful speech, so much that it messed with my spirit just to see it. A part of me wanted to post back, to make some protest, but now I think the racists and bigots can have it. Anybody left there who thinks otherwise, I salute your tenacity, but for me, it's not the altar I want to sacrifice my mental health on.
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| AP photo by Andy Mannis |
And it's not just limited to the Twitter streets, the real streets are getting rougher as well. I'm seeing more aggressive behavior towards immigrants and people of color, and not just on the social medias. Sometimes it's overt, and that's easy enough to call out, but lately, especially among young men, I'm seeing them wearing a mask in public, one that has an outward respectability, but also slips sometimes. As a teacher, I've had to deal with a few young men who think they're talking in a code that I don't understand, but one that's not very hard to crack. The social climate has gotten so charged with anger, tribalism, and superiority that it's harder than ever to judge someone's motives. I worry for some members of my family who are either immigrants trying to sort out their status or Black folks trying to navigate through hostile territory. On the one hand, I'm glad to live where I do, in a city and area that's cosmopolitan enough to understand common public decorum and diverse enough that people have to watch what they say and do. On the other hand, it's still Florida, and I'm not a fool.
I'm seeing judges intimidated and arrested, immigrants arrested at their citizenship interviews or snatched off street corners for speaking out against the current administration. There's talk about suspending habeas corpus, about ICE agents invading schools and churches, and long-standing universities threatened with sanctions or outright appropriation if they refuse to bend to the ruling party. It's like we've gotten all the dictatorship trappings I was told would happen if we went down the slippery slope of socialized health care, except we never got the health care.
But there's something else I'm seeing that I never expected. I'm seeing town halls in the dead center of the reddest districts and states full of angry white folks yelling at their elected representatives to speak up and oppose the administration, even from within the same party. I'm seeing Republican voters barking at Republican senators about bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia home, and sometimes getting escorted or even dragged out for their efforts. I wonder if those people ever pictured themselves on the receiving end of the silencing power of the state. Some of the same people who clamored to get Kaepernick fired for kneeling are shouting about government overreach and human rights, and I'm here for it. I'm seeing corporations using the same greed that got them filthy rich to expose the damage that the tariffs are causing to the economy, threatening to post transparent pricing and warning the same people who voted for tariffs in the first place exactly what that vote will cost them.
"Some of the same people who clamored to get Kaepernick fired for kneeling are shouting about government overreach and human rights, and I'm here for it."
I'm also seeing the same app that lawmakers wanted to ban because of some Communist threat being used to spread information and resistance. For every new dance I see on TikTok, I see at least five reels attacking government corruption and abuse. The tone might be cute or caustic or downright scathing, but people are using their talents and technology to resist, and being smart about it, too. It might feel dangerous to speak out on TikTok, but that form of protest doesn't give the ruling class the excuse they're looking for to declare martial law. And what it lacks in physical, public presence, it more than makes up for in viral impact and memorability. I don't know where they went to marketing school, but these creators are so focused in their message and so impactful in their style and delivery, they might just turn things around for all of us.
The one thing I'm still waiting to see is for the church to separate itself from the mess it helped to create. I've noticed a few pastors speaking out, and a few churches getting involved with immigration and human rights, especially now that the specter of ICE agents in their sanctuaries has loomed over them. The new pope, an American for the first time, has already been on record against the abuses of this government. But we could be doing more. Praying, obviously, as a start, but also directing the resources and voice of our churches to oppose all of this greed and hate. I love seeing the older white guy wearing suspenders and a John Deere cap, shouting in the town hall, demanding that his representative do something to stop all this abuse and lawlessness, but I want to see him take that same energy into his church and connect that passion to the Christian mission.
Beside that, I want to see him take that energy into the voting booth in a year and a half. Assuming that elections are still a thing by then, we have midterms to start to turn this thing around. For whatever my vote is worth, I want to see the Capitol full of people who have a track record of opposition and the courage to write new bills, block abusive policies, and fire or impeach all these people chipping away at our democracy and society.
