My mom repeatedly tells me to not post my political views online, as they could impede me from acquiring a job hopefully sometime in the near future. While I understand exactly why that's the case, I hate why that is. In the world we live in, if you're a different political alignment, you may as well be a lesser species to the point of view of the other side. The fact that we have to hide our political views in the first place is an indicator of how bad the world is. If we're so intent on making this country better, shouldn't we be working together with the people from the other side? Shouldn't we be compromising?
And now I'll laugh. Politics has never been about making stuff better, not for a long time. It's all been a matter of us being better than them and all that stuff we think it is. Politics is about our respective side being awesome. Right now, the United States is....sorry, WAS in political gridlock. The democrats were blocking the republicans at every turn, and vice versa, and suddenly the platform of both parties was "we're not the other guys, therefore we're better"
I could go on with this, but I'm fairly certain you get the gist of what people have been thinking for a while: politics is fucked up, and the only way to change it is to be a politician, and we all know how difficult it is to do that. Right, Mr. Byrd?
The main thing that motivated this blog post was the news that people have been killing themselves as a result of Trump winning the presidency. The problem with this is now that an anti-LGBT president is in office, people all over the country think it's okay to bully said group. These
AFTERTHOUGHT: you could just make LGBT-ness a religion, then it would be protected by the first amendment, like polygamy with the Mormons. Is that possible?
While there are some things that will most certainly change for the time being (like sexually active women being advised to get IUD's now before Pence fucks over Planned Parenthood, that's a time-sensitive certainty), the one thing that will not change is the civil rights movement for women, LGBT, minorities, and everyone else whose rights have been repressed for god knows how long. In 4 years, Trump will be elected out of office (I am quite confident in this, given what Trump has planned for America). There was a time in our childhood when 4 years meant forever, but in this day and age, our perception has been sped up to the point where a single day goes by in a blink, and a week is over before we know it.
The civil rights movement, obviously, has got several kicks in the ass before. Just because this is a big one does not mean that it's over.
This is for everyone who's LGBT, just because Trump is president doesn't mean that you're any less important. You're on the verge of being recognized by society for who you are, and stopping your fight now is just wrong. Hold your heads high, look into the eyes of everyone who says "just go and kill yourself", and say, "No."
Keep fighting. Even if you think you're not going to win, even if the odds are against you, keep fighting.
