Who are the ones who aren’t being heard, and what do they want people to hear? Because apparently these are the ones who are soothed by the Trumpian Siren song, who still adore the Orange Jesus and still believe he can address their… plight?
What do they need—a job, food, shelter, clothing, health care, a good education? Or is it more a country full of people who look like them, who think like them; a country where black and brown and Asian and Jewish need not apply, a country focused on limits and quotas, that has no use for science, and believes in nothing and no one besides God and guns?
The latest great news is that young people are stocking up on survival supplies ahead of the 2024 election because they fear this country is unraveling, society is unraveling. Who’s telling them this? They’re disenchanted, disillusioned, maybe frightened for no good reason, or at least the wrong reasons.
I don’t know if these are young people who have bought the phlegm being smeared online and in chat rooms and on OAN and Newsmax and Fox, or if they’re looking around and actually not liking what they’re seeing.
Is it because they’ve bought the sensational garbage about Democrats being evil socialists and the main cause of all the bad things going on in the country? This is madness.
We don’t need to be here in this somewhat fabricated predicament where such stark lines are being drawn, where people are getting upset over perceived slights and ineptitude, expressing misplaced outrage and disillusionment. Things don’t need to be as bad as these young people apparently think they are. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, to some degree, stoked by rags like the New York Post and other “news” outlets with a Murdochian slant.
Besides, people of a certain age—late teens, early twenties—get their boxers in a bunch fairly easily. They’re naïve, idealistic, starry-eyed, ready to react, ready to buy into anything that either angers or inspires.
Is there yet a place for people with even temperaments, quiet yet firm voices, a healthy dose of can-do and relentless optimism? And a heart for inclusion, for getting along?
Rare birds, I know. But we need them now.
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