a different fuckery

We have got ourselves into a sad state of affairs. It didn't happen with the current president but he sure has amplified it.

I am a democrat and a liberal and I come at this whole thing from that perspective. So I'll use one of my guys to try to explain.

I remember when Al Gore ran for president the last time in 2000. I listened to him campaign in agony. I knew I was going to vote for him but the way he spoke felt like he was too hyper aware of how he would come off.  Instead of being himself and bringing his real message, you could tell he wanted to be seen a certain way and not piss off the wrong people. Like most politicians today his message was whatever he thought would get him elected. The only bigger letdown I'd met from my chosen party at that time was when Bill Clinton announced he was not a liberal when he obviously was/is. Bill Clinton got a BJ in the White House. Dude was liberal. It killed me when these guys pretended they weren't for marriage equality when we all knew they were. Friggin Obama didn't even get on board with marriage equality until it was more accepted. And yes, I love Obama but the truth is still the truth.

Even though Gore ended up winning the popular vote I could tell he wasn't connecting during the election. So, I emailed his staff to beg them to ask him to talk like a real person. Of course there was more to the email than that. I knew it was a long shot but I was truly worried he was blowing it and I wanted to help.

Cut to 17 years later and nothing has changed unless you count Bernie Sanders. Bernie blows me away. When I heard him speak I knew he didn't need an email from me telling him to be a real person. Hearing him was the first time I felt like I was hearing a politician say what they really felt and not what they thought would get them elected.

It's not the old white man's world anymore where people cannot seem to allow others to be who they are. It ain't gonna work on this new generation. They don't want people who hide behind big money and popular policies. That is why they loved Bernie. Bernie may be a 75 year old, old white man but he's cut from new cloth and we ain't seen this type cloth before.

I have always been a person that tries to do the right thing even if it gets me in hot water. I'm not going to profess to be something I am not and I can't be bought off in any way. There aren't a lot of people like that. Believe me I know and I know people like me when I see one. Most people are afraid to make waves or to not fit in. I don't have those fears. I'm not saying my way is the way to be. There are a lot of ways that being like me can hurt ya. Fitting in can carry you much further. I just don't care to go further if I have to be anything that I'm not.

For whatever reason (cough religion) our country has become a place where people think you should act and live only one way. Even when folks don't live that way they try to make you think they do. They must fit in. Not sure if our current political climate grew out of a country of people afraid of not fitting in or if  a country of whose politicians, play at being what you think they should be, grew the country as it is. Did the people grow US politics or did US politics grow the people. It's the chicken and egg thing. Either way, one of these things is going to have to change. We are going to have to wake up, stop pretending shit and stop being afraid to be real. When one side wakes up it will wake up the other. There should not be one Bernie Sanders in a field of Paul Ryan's.

We live a life to fit in. We expect everyone to live in a way they fit in. I know this is much more complex than I have stated. The possibility of being a person at all and then being the person with our unique traits is so small. So many eggs, so much sperm, so many parents, so many communities, so many countries and for whatever reason, we become a person with no copy out of those gazillion possibilities. No matter how special that makes us in this world, where no one is like us, all we care about is fitting in. We don't think about how we are different and one of a kind. We had rather make sure we are like everyone else. Fitting in becomes our goal. And not just the goal we set for ourselves, we want everyone to fit that same mold. Goodness forbid anyone become the exact person they were born to be.

Forget all the other fuckery in the world. This is the conversation we should be having.