The Enemy From Within
A late Election Day response
Above is an angry doodle done entirely on a whiteboard out of pure spite that I never intended on using for anything but took a picture of anyway. I’m deciding to use it now.
Hi.
It’s been a while.
I’m sorry for the hiatus. Things have gotten complicated on my end. Really complicated. There’s a million things I’ve needed to get done, and to be honest, my mental health has taken somewhat of a decline recently for a lot of reasons.
I’m a senior in high school. I need to start planning some things for my future, because that won’t be done for me now. And it’s been scary to be honest.
And something recently happened that has made that future a lot scarier.
I know, it’s been well over a month since the election. It’s old news. Why talk about it now?
Mainly because I wasn’t sure how to address it, or even if I should address it at all. While I’m writing this, I have no idea how to do it. Should I make it long? Should I make it short? Some of the many, many questions I’ve been asking myself recently.
I’ve been driving myself crazy with questions recently.
I can’t help it. My mind doesn’t stop. It spirals. Life for me is like walking through an endless field that’s covered in rabbit holes. I just keep falling into them. It’s because of this trait that I’ve often wondered if I have OCD, or maybe autism, or maybe both, but I haven’t been diagnosed with anything so I won’t officially claim to have either of those.
But the point is, my mind doesn’t shut off. It has to keep thinking. It has to work things out. Which comes to another problem; my mind is absolutely terrible at working things out. The only way I can silence my off-the-rails trains of thought is by forcing myself to come to conclusions, whether they’re correct conclusions or not.
And the big problem for me is that a lot of the conclusions I found comfort in for months were just shattered on November 5th.
I won’t lie, between personal things, national things, and international things, my mind has gone haywire. For some awful reason, I’ve taken it upon myself to “save the world” or some bullshit a procrastinating teenager who can’t get his own act together just cannot do. I’m too much of a dreamer. And I’ve tried not to be, but like I explained before, my mind doesn’t work that way. It keeps chugging out thoughts like some broken idea factory maxing out its production until all its workers have passed out from exhaustion.
And already this Substack post has spiraled a little out of control. Sorry, I’m really venting with this one.
Let’s bring back some order and start from the beginning.
On November 1st, I uploaded a post titled “Where It Should Have Ended.” It was supposed to be my opus magnum of political posts, and hopefully one of the final. I was so, so, SO tired of politics. It was eating away at my relationships, my emotions, and my sanity. I had gotten into some disagreements with loved ones over my political views, and if you know me, I hate disagreeing with people I love. Especially over something like this. It screws with my morals.
So, in response, I wrote this, not to convince the nation, but to convince those people that Trump was the worst pick for president in the history of ever. I compiled a giant list of things he had done documented by various different sources, and that was only me scratching the surface.
The deeper I fell into this rabbit hole, the worse it became. The scarier Trump became to me. The scarier the modern Republican Party became to me.
The more my mental health deteriorated.
That post was a bitch to put together. I was so happy when I was done with it. I thought finally I could convince some of those stubborn people. And I thought that it didn’t really matter in the end, as soon we’d have our first female president and they’d just have to get over it. And I could put politics behind me for a while.
I was hopeful. Hopeful that such a horrible person couldn’t manipulate his way into such a powerful position. I was so hopeful that I ended that post by saying, “It didn’t end then, but it ends now,” referring to when Trump mocked a disabled person at the start of his 2016 campaign.
It ends now.
Those words aged like milk.
I honestly don’t know what to say. Again, I’ve been considering saying nothing. So many things I was so sure of were proven wrong during the election. I was confident in Harris. I was confident in America. I was confident in love. And I know all of this sounds dramatic, but I honestly don’t give a shit anymore. I’m so freaking tired of giving a shit about anything. It’s my inability to not give a shit that got me into this situation in the first place.
This might be really preachy and arrogant to say, but I care too much.
I care too much about everybody and everything. I want to see things thrive, not struggle. I want to see people thrive.
So it has really sent my mind into a loop trying to understand why so many people picked a guy who cares nothing for anybody but his own orange ass.
I feel a lot of things right now.
I feel angry.
I feel sad.
I feel confused.
I feel bitter.
I feel betrayed.
I feel dumb.
I feel alone.
I feel hateful.
I feel remorseful.
But most of all, I feel frightened.
“Frightened” is an understatement, I feel terrified.
And maybe some people might tell me not to, that I’m making too big of a deal out of this, or I’m actually just flat out wrong, but I don’t know how I can be. I’ve looked to history, I’ve done my research, I’ve done so much research it was draining me. And based on all I’m seeing from Trump and the global stage, I have every right to be downright petrified of what is happening.
I know I’m probably preaching to the choir here, as a lot of my viewership comes from leftwingers anyway, but I’ve got to get some things off my chest.
For one thing, I feel lied to. For my entire life, from almost every person I’ve ever encountered, I’ve been told America is the land of the free and the home of the brave, and don’t you dare question it. Anyone who said otherwise was made out to be ungrateful or just crazy by our society. And I believed them.
I have firmly believed we were the best my entire life.
And I don’t really believe that anymore.
Call me ungrateful, call me foolish, call me whatever. America chose Trump. He won the popular vote this time. I can’t blame it entirely on the system.
And that fact has raped my patriotism.
The fact that a revenge campaign led by a complete lunatic won over a woman who was entirely overqualified for the job. The fact that our nation is this misogynistic and racist and self centered, and you better believe I’m coming back to that.
But I also refuse to believe that everyone who voted for Trump is just a bigot. A lot of people have been hurting. Times have been tough. Grocery and gas prices have been bad.
But for one thing, the president doesn’t control prices. We live in a capitalist society. Do you know what that means? That means COMPANIES choose the prices based on the market. Yes, the government can put controls on prices, but that’s the government, not just the president. And even then, that would require them controlling businesses, which last I heard was something nobody liked because that’s “communist.”
What’s that old cliche? “You can’t have your cake and eat it too?”
But yes, I understand, you want to blame the person “in charge.” And I get that. You have to survive.
So maybe I won’t be so bitter about all of you choosing Trump if everyone didn’t preach to me that we’re the land of the free. Because if you vote for just prices, why the hell did you even vote? The world is so much bigger than prices, and if prices are entirely your world, that doesn’t sound like freedom to me.
There were so many issues on the ballot this election, including the rights of almost everyone to some extent. And we were thwarted, nay, domesticated by egg and gas prices?
If your life centers entirely around egg and gas prices, then your life must be shit. And that sure as hell doesn’t sound like the “American Dream” to me.
And the fact that that’s all you care about also disturbs me on a fundamental level.
But no, you voted for the economy, because clearly you know what a tariff does. And you know why tons of hard tariffs would be good for the economy.
But I’m not just pissed at Republicans. I’m pissed at Democrats too. I’m pissed at the left for being so arrogant and so quick to jump to conclusions. I’m pissed that we acted like we had this in the bag. I’m pissed that we were disconnected from the actual voting situation.
This whole thing has made me realize how disconnected we truly are as a species. And that’s horrifying.
And the scariest thing to me is how I’ve realized we are doomed to repeat cycles, no matter what. Because we aren’t gods. We’re monkeys. Dumb, arrogant monkeys.
I am so tired of politics. I’m so tired of Trump. I’m so tired of this world tearing itself apart, and me being powerless to stop it. And I’m so tired of myself. Of my self righteousness. Of my need to save things I have no business saving while neglecting things I actually should be doing.
And every day I tune into the Trump madness, the worse it gets. His comments are getting crazier and scarier. So are the comments of other Republicans. And every new pedophile he appoints to a new position gives me a little panic attack inside. It’s so bad that I’ve actually been avoiding Substack for the past month, because each time I’ve opened it, I’ve become more depressed.
So I’m done with the nonstop politics.
I’m not tuning out entirely, but I’ve got to back out a little. I can’t keep this up. I don’t have much of a unique angle anymore. I’m just a broken record. And I have nothing hopeful to say. I can’t find anything hopeful to say.
And Substack has become a chore. And I don’t want that.
What I want to do is write stories.
I want to entertain. I want to make fictional worlds to escape to.
My desire to write fiction was the whole reason I started a Substack account in the first place.
I won’t be dropping the political content entirely, but it won’t be the norm anymore. I can’t keep that up. I understand if you don’t like that decision. But it’s my decision. And in this dark time, I need something I can take control of. And besides, a lot of my narratives will probably have political and social undertones to them. I can’t help it.
My Substack posts will likely become fewer and farther between. I cannot keep up the weekly schedule. But hopefully I will be able to put out better quality content that I want to put out. And maybe if I’m lucky, it will entertain you. And if I’m even more lucky, it will make you think.
The left was so emboldened by Harris. I had never seen us stronger. That front really hid the fact that we were weaker. And the moment Trump won, the dominoes fell. Society seemed to turn upside-down.
Democrats scrambled like cockroaches. We all went back into the shadows, pointing fingers, freaking out, losing all conceptions of plans on what to do now. Leftwing media crumpled like a cookie.
Meanwhile, the right has been running victory laps. They’ve been emboldened by their savior winning. So many hateful people have been pulled from the shadows.
I’ve watched racism and misogyny skyrocket in conversations. People have been threatening women online. I’ve heard people casually throwing around racist comments like I never thought would’ve been remotely accepted in the 21st Century, but they don’t care.
Hate is winning. It’s all I’ve seen lately. I’m beginning to doubt if love is stronger than hate. I know it’s better, and I need love to triumph, but is it really stronger?
I’ve seen fear like I’ve never seen it before. The haunted, drained faces of teachers unsure what to do. Adults who never talked about politics before openly talking about how they’re looking to move to another country. LGBTQ+ suicide rates exploded.
And my friends.
I’ll leave you with this story.
The day after the election, everyone was talking about it. I overheard plenty of unpleasant opinions about it from my classmates. I never knew so many of them were so hateful. But I found my group of equally, if not, more terrified individuals.
My friend group is primarily made up of some sort of minority at this point. LGBTQ+ people, young women, disabled people, people of other races, people who are not neurotypical.
I am none of those things.
I’m a straight, white male. I’ve wondered if I might have autism or OCD, as I’ve said, but it’s never been identified in me in any sort besides my friends thinking I’m autistic as hell, which is far from a diagnosis.
I am not a minority. So why should I be afraid of Trump?
Which is something I felt guilty about sitting around them at my lunch table. I am unwillingly a representative of the group trying to oppress a lot of them. I have luxuries they’ll never have.
And yet they accept me.
Going around the lunch table, we had a fun conversation about how the Trump administration could hypothetically come after each and every single one of our asses, a bunch of insignificant kids from deadend Iowa.
Five of the people sitting there were girls, so it was quite obvious how they were targeted. A few of them were on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, so they were hit with the double whammy. A boy sitting with us really had nothing to be exactly persecuted for, but as someone who eagerly wants to join the military after high school, he certainly took Trump as a draft-dodging coward. Another boy sitting with us is an immigrant. An entirely legal immigrant to be clear, but as of recent, Trump doesn’t seem to care much for legal status anymore (And people are still trying to tell me he’s not a Nazi?).
We all nervously laughed at every comment, thinking about how every single one of us could be a target of the incoming administration from hell.
Every single one of us but me.
The white, straight male, born and raised in the good ol’ USA, just like my mom and pop, and like their moms and pops before them, and their moms and pops before them, and so on.
But to my surprise, they didn’t see it that way. They didn’t see me as immune. In fact, they thought I was a big target.
“How?” I asked.
They brought up the very thing you are reading. My Substack. I’ve been speaking out against Orange Hitler for quite some time now, so even though I am surely not public enemy #1 (look, I don’t even have 150 subscribers), I am not in Cheeto’s good graces, as is anyone else who’s spoken against him and his agenda.
I am among those he’s been preaching about for years now, especially in the last few weeks of his campaign.
I am the enemy from within.
I am one of the many who disagree with him and are fairly outspoken about it. I am a straight, white male, yes, but I am one who resists his ideology. That makes me and anyone like me a threat.
It shouldn’t make you happy, being told you might get into some kind of dangerous trouble down the road for just saying what you believe, but it made me feel good. It made me feel accepted. It made me feel validated. Because for the last 12 months, in one way or another, I’ve been trying to defend these friends and other people like them. I’ve been losing my head over trying to protect them, even if my method isn’t entirely significant.
Oddly enough, saying I might (emphasis on the “might”) get persecuted was their way of welcoming me to the club. And in a reverse effect, that gave me hope(?).
So for their sake, and for the sake of everyone who will suffer from a second Trump term, which, spoiler alert, is everyone, I proudly accept my fate as an “enemy from within.” Even as I move away from constant political content, I will continue to find ways to support my friends and family who are targeted by this wave of bigotry. I will continue to lift them up in the face of adversity. I will continue to support them.
And I will continue to be outspoken about the fascist MAGA movement, because that’s what it is. I will continue to resist the ideology.
Because I can’t help it. My mind can’t stop. It questions everything. I may seem stubborn, but I really am not. I question my side of this argument every waking moment of every day, and it’s draining. And every time I do, I come to the realization that there is nothing I find morally or factually correct about the MAGA movement, which has helped solidify my beliefs.
So why is everyone else so damn stubborn? That’s a question for everyone on every side of every argument. Look where stubbornness has gotten us.
I have to question. I have to pick apart everything. I cannot help it. So ironically, in that way, I am naturally an enemy from within. I naturally doubt. I naturally find it impossible to fully conform to anything.
It’s against my nature to be MAGA.
What’s that old saying? “Give me liberty or give me death?”
That seems a little bold for me. I really am a coward.
…
Give them liberty or give me death.
Give THEM liberty or give ME death!
Because it’s the least I can do for my friends and family who didn’t choose to be an enemy from within.
The year I graduated from high school in W. Illinois, the Kent State and Jackson State student shootings occurred. It was turbulent times, origin of much of the culture war of our times. In 1972 I listened to the people even my fellow college students, it became obvious Nixon would win in a landslide. He captured a true mandate, not this eked (funded by billions, court assisted) victory. How could people vote for Nixon? His secret plan for Vietnam meant an equal number of Americans died after 1968 as during Johnson's administration. The toll on the Vietnamese was immense, after the 1972 election the Christmas bombings. History has revealed he interfered with peace negotiations with North Vietnam. The Anna Chennault Affair prevented a peace treaty before the 1968 election. No one had paid attention to the Watergate incident before his 1972 victory. Newspaper columnists wrote of the incoming Imperil Presidency. Yet, somehow out the hubris and corruption of the Nixon administration they created their own downfall. It seemed like the fall of Syria a long struggle, then collapse came quickly near the end. We have all been in despair. I suffer from the loss of belief in Americans. I understand your feelings, even though we live in different generational universes. I recorded my commentary local NPR thought it too hot to play in MAGA Land -- https://shiresteve.substack.com/p/gratitude-at-thanksgiving Trudge on; it is a hike and those who hold to ethics, moral values, and ideals must continue to place one foot after another.
You aren't alone! We are living in uncharted times, people have been told lies for so long from the incoming president that people believe the lies are the truth. To me they have become brain washed, for lack of a better term, and have lashed out at the very problem that he has created while he points fingers blaming others. You care, you have a great passion for the vision of everything our Country can and should be. What has frustrated me is people no longer seek the truth. They take the lazy way out and listen to media outlets that spread lies and false information and they believe they are the gospel. When you try to correct them they get furious, angry, loud and start blaming everyone other then who created the problem in the first place. I'm amazed when they lose the election was rigged, because they were told is was, and when they win they don't question anything. I used to try and correct them but was been a waste of time and breathe. The Republican way has become create a problem, identify we have a problem and in turn make the problem while pointing their fingers at any one that has spoken out against their poor decisions. It isn't easy to identify those that truly care for the country they all knots in their stomachs and a confused look on their faces. Hang tough the truth always wins. You are a good person and it reflects in your writing. The world needs more K.L.'s!!!!