“What’s going to happen in this next election? I’m terrified about what could possibly happen, because our leaders matter. Who we select, who speaks for us, who holds that bully pulpit, it affects us in ways sometimes I think people take for granted,” Obama told Jay Shetty on his podcast “On Purpose.”
“The fact that people think that government — ‘eh, does it really even do anything?’ — and I’m like ‘Oh my God, does government do everything for us, and we cannot take this democracy for granted.’ And I worry sometimes that we do. Those are the things that keep me up,” she said.
“The bars are different for people in life. That I’ve learned,” she said.
Without naming Trump, she continued: “Other people can be indicted a bunch of times and still run for office. Black men can’t. You just learn to be good. And in the end, you benefit from that extra resilience.”
Hi, American here.
American domestic politics is absolutely fucked right now.
The Republican Party does not really even have any policy proposals for serious issues at the Federal level.
They spent years saying ‘Obamacare bad’, saying they could do healthcare better. Basically it is a decade later and they have no plan, not even a proposal.
Taxes? We still have morons like DeSantis basically saying ‘I dunno, maybe a flat tax?’ to applause during stump speeches and debates. The flat tax proposal is absolutely insane for a large number of reasons, but the Republican base eats it up.
Look, there are something like 50 million + Americans that believe in all or most of the QAnon conspiracy theories, that believe God himself appointed Trump as President.
Trump stacked the Supreme Court.
The Republicans have functionally made abortion illegal in about half the country.
Meanwhile the economy is /apparently/ recovering, though the prices of basically everything you need to routinely pay for have risen fairly dramatically while wages have remained basically stagnant. Wealth inequality has spiralled to obscene levels, rent has basically doubled in about half a decade.
As I write this, I believe that polls of Biden v Trump are still showing Trump ahead.
Even if Trump does not win, and even if the MAGA QAnon types do not do a bunch of terrorism (again), they still exist, and are hopelessly living in basically an alternate reality where anything that goes against their worldview is fake, a conspiracy, of the Devil.
It was about 3 years ago now that I told my friend group that the QAnon problem was so serious that we would need some kind of analogous concept to the de-Nazification program as was implemented after WW2 in West Germany to deal with it. They either laughed at or ignored me. None of those people are my friends any more.
We are fucked.
The only thing that motivates most Republican voters is hatred. Any politician who says Trans people bad, Critical Race Theory bad, Immigrants bad, Homeless People bad, anything like that receives applause from the audience.
And I write this /as a homeless person/ who will almost certainly not be able to vote in the upcoming election. I will be /lucky/ if I can even find and qualify for an actual apartment after basically a bunch of crimes that happened to me in the course of last year caused me serious physical injury and the loss of all of my possessions, ruined my credit score, placed my in incredible debt, lost me my job and my ability to do any other job until my physical injuries are healed, which I simply have to handle myself, while homeless, because the cost of engaging with American healthcare system to handle my problems now would be sufficient to outright purchase a modest home (outright) less than a decade ago.
Meanwhile, Trump has outright stated he would like to implement basically concentration camps for the homeless. He has stated he wants to eliminate the vermin leftists. He is very concerned with the purity of the blood of the nation, and has outright stated he will be a dictator.
And he is currently leading in the polls.
Again, this country is fucked. So, sorry Europeans, I would love to be able to assuage your fears, and become an activist or something.
Maybe send me some of your healthcare and I’ll get right on it.
Or maybe I am extremely tired, have no hope for this broken country, and could use the services of someone who can smuggle me into Canada or something.
If you are homeless, reach out to a shelter to see if they would be okay with you declaring them as your residence for the purpose of mail/voter registration. You can obtain ID from the state and have it sent there, and then that enables you to register to vote. Or if you have a bit of cash, you can also register a PO box through USPS for your mail.
It may be too late for you to vote in the primary depending on where you live, but you’ve still got plenty of time for the general election in November.
I can only encourage you to keep trying, because disenfranchising the socially vulnerable means that the Republican strategy is working.
All of the day + night shelters are full. Beyond full. Waiting lists for a year+ full.
The vast majority of shelters in America for single adult men are overnight only, and where I am now, having had to travel halfway across the country to find somewhere I can afford to stay that is /safe/, it will be about 5 degrees Fahrenheit during the day.
Almost none of the overnight shelters allow you to use them as an address. In my experience, they are also full of many fentanyl addicts, murderers and thieves.
I will continue staying in motels, with heating, comfortable beds and showers that allow my serious ligament, muscle and bone injuries to heal, as opposed to staying in an overnight shelter where I would be forced to wander around in freezing weather during the day, seriously injuring me further, even if it means I cannot vote.
Honestly, fuck you. I would rather be /alive/ and not in horrific pain than possibly have the ability to vote.
I would rather have privacy and security, though it be costly, than be at risk of literally causing my injuries to exacerbate so seriously that I would be permanently disabled at best, murdered or collapsed from a torn ligament in the freezing cold and dying at worst.
I do not care to follow your laughably inadequate advice to prioritize voting in a broken system over my current survival.
Maybe you could actually do something functionally useful to address homelessness in your area or something, instead.
Well if this is how you treat people who try to offer a shred of advice or compassion, then I hate to say it but maybe you deserve your circumstances. I can’t help you more than this.
You know nothing about me, but you immediately come back with open hostility. I am only trying to offer the same advice that I would for the refugee and immigrant populations that the organization I work for supports.
Your priorities may not be the same as everyone else’s, but there are people literally dying for their vote and it is just as awful to belittle that or say that they aren’t prioritizing things that make a difference. Because it truly does to many people, and I would say it does now more than ever.
Your advice is ludicrous for any single adult male anywhere in America right now, so your organization must not be very competent.
Suggesting that a single adult male, right now, in America, who already told you that they have serious injuries, should go seek a dangerous shelter which in all likelihood /will not shelter them/, which one either has to do on foot, or by wasting hours and hours searching the internet, for the aim of being able to vote, is absurd.
What should obviously be prioritized is the physical safety and security of the individual.
And I know this /because I used to work for a non profit helping the homeless/.
Telling an injured person to prioritize unsafe options that will waste their time, nearly certainly actually not result in acquiring shelter, for the purposes of being able to vote, that this priority is more important than /actually being alive/ is perfectly indicative of the attitude that many liberals have toward the homeless.
Which is basically: Do literally anything other than remedy the actual issue, you know, homelessness, which causes injuries, trauma, starvation. And then, if any of them give you any lip about this, tell them they deserve their predicament.
You are a ridiculous person. You are exactly like many of the people I used to at first work with, and then became reliant on until I realized hey could not help me: Wasting the time of the homeless with absurd hoops to jump through that can literally result in their death if your suggestions prove inadequate, and also they trust you and diligently follow their advice.
All I had to do was tell you that your advice was laughable, and be angry about how bad and useless this advice was, and you have now decided that I am rude and offensive to everyone trying to help and that I deserve my situation.
I am not in fact rude to everyone trying to help me.
I am rude to people who suggest I do things that /will endanger my health and safety/.
You are an awful human being.
If you do really work to aid the unhoused, you and your organization are morons. Your advice would be even /more/ ridiculous for immigrants and refugees who often cannot speak English well or at all.
I’d put you up, man, but I’m moving in with my parents so I can pay off debt and maybe, MAYBE save enough to buy my own house someday.
I appreciate the sentiment, and I completely understand your situation.
By basically dumb luck, I managed to wander past a shoddy low rent motel … that offers monthly leases.
Its got a comfy bed, a fridge, a microwave, a working toilet and tub, and most importantly, I can afford it.
Knowing that there is /somewhere/ I can afford to stay at, and will not have to figure out some new place to stay every few weeks is a massive improvement.
The near constant state of mortal panic is now lowering. All I have to do is basically not talk to anyone else who stays at this place.
/Now/ I can finally start to figure out how to replace my Drivers License and other important identifying documents, as most of those got stolen from me months ago at a shelter in another state.
Apologies if there was confusion, I just ask that you please read what I wrote again. I was not advocating staying at a shelter per se; if you have better accommodations, as a lot of unhoused residents do, then that’s great. You are better off not staying in a shelter if you don’t need it.
I was speaking more to the fact that organizations which run homeless shelters will typically offer additional levels of support when it comes to mail and ID procurement. They may be able to assist with getting you documentation directly, or may be able to help put you in contact with another organization that can.
But if this is the way you respond to people who just suggest possible avenues of support, I’m guessing that’s not something you’d be willing to do, so I’ll just leave it here. You seem to know what’s best for you, so good luck.
c/iamatotalpieceofshit
Gross. Nobody deserves to be homeless, even if they’re being a dick.
I wish I could, I really do.
I appreciate the kind words.