I have unsettled feelings about America today. There's exhaustion and fear and frustration and so so much disgust mixed it. But also, this is my country, my birthright that they are trampling on.
I don't know how to express that anger without false bravado or useless doom. Too many unhelpful cliches and scripts are crowding my mind. The noise surrounding the electoral contest is overwhelming.
America is my home. It is an ideal I love. It is also all of this, this mess, this roiling chaos, this unending contest, this monster I cannot tame. Whatever America is to me it first, independently, is itself. It has always been thus. I just refused to see it.
I started reading the Oxford History of the United States recently, and I’m stunned by how relatable the previous Americans were - numerous passages could easily apply to us. There were several points where the democratic experiment could have ended, and I don’t want to be the generation that fails.
This is insane and I have a family to think about but if the time comes where the right thing to do is join a fight for the proper version of America, one in which I and anyone else are able to speak my mind freely, I believe I will do so without reservation
