What's keeping us up at night
Y’all, I’m exhausted.
I read the news too much, and it’s all bad. A dude with a green card was illegally taken away for leading protests against US-supported genocide. “Antisemitism” they said, without a hint of irony at the fact that the current government fully supports actual Nazis.
Then two Germans were thrown into immigration detention centers even though they were legally permitted to enter the US.
And the only reasons deportations aren’t way higher than they currently are is because the logistics of it aren’t quite as easy as they look in cartoons.
To all this, I’m not even sure what to say. Fascism has arrived to the US, officially. The people who might be able to exert some control and pump the breaks on this new administration have either been fired under the guise of “getting rid of DEI” and “government waste” (not touching those subsidies to Elon, obviously) or have been coerced into cheering it on lest they become a target.
What a shit show.
I’m glad to be living in Mexico. Mexico is not a perfect country either, but at least our president doesn’t spend her time making up totally outlandish stories about everything and demonizing everyone she doesn’t like. I’m pretty sure she’s never been accused of a whole bunch of sex crimes, either. And though this doesn’t necessarily come from the president, there’s just a different feeling here. People have not been marinated in hate for political purposes.
I don’t know, y’all. This is just all terrible and I feel both enraged and impotent. The bad guys are winning, and so far it’s unclear what can be done about it. The end goal seems to be to keep almost everyone as serfs, forever in debt to billionaires who want to own everything and rent our basic needs back to us, which we will pay for with the meager amount left over after the theft of the majority of our labor.
Do we hunker down and take shelter until the tornado has passed, or run outside and shake our fists at it while it’s still ripping up our lives?
This is all I’ve got to offer today. I hope we can make it better.
Thanks for your nice comments, everyone. Honestly, I was ready to just write "Can't write anything today, too overloaded by news," on Sunday, ha. It's nice to know at least I'm not the only way feeling like this! I came to Mexico back when it wasn't really cool to come to Mexico -- not for refuge -- but it sure feels like a refuge now.
I totally get what you are saying, and agree that there is different tone to things here in Mexico. Yes, every country has its own serious problems, but there does not seem to be the same general mean-spirited attitude here. Nor the same gun culture in the general population. I just hope our host country, Mexico, does not get too fed up with the idiocy coming out of Washington. I count myself lucky to be here.