Letter 110:
September 22, 2024
I grew up in Indiana in the 80s and 90s. I’d say I was mostly a 90s kids so my exposure to politics was the Bill Clinton era. The defining political moment of my youth was watching the Republicans freak out because the President had gotten a blowjob.
At that point, I hadn’t ever gotten a blowjob but wanted one. Why would I ever vote for a party that was so deeply against blowjobs? That was the moment I joined America’s Left.
Even then it felt very forced. The first time I voted, I almost didn’t because I failed to really see much of a difference between George Bush and Al Gore. Even then I had the vague tingle in the back of my skull that this was a stage-managed choice between the red puppet and blue puppet… But I thought no it’s because you are 19, this matters, this act of voting … it really matters because well that’s what I was told. Besides, voting for Al Gore felt like a mild rebuke from those Christian fundamentalists that stood between me and a blowjob.
Then I moved to Los Angeles, got a blowjob, and a couple months after I moved … 9/11. I was marginally in the film industry at the time. Was evacuated from Raleigh Studios after watching the towers fall at one of the sound stages. Horrible day.
I am an elder millennial so I didn’t know this was just the beginning of witnessing many historic, horrible days.
The Iraq War came and even though I was a stupid 22 year old, I knew that war was bullshit. It was a blatant war for oil and land cloaked in weird Neo-Colonial Christianity. Looking back — I think that was where my distrust of the mainstream media took root, like a spec of sand in an oyster. If a stupid 22 year old could see the sheer stupidity of that war, why could they the New York Times.
So — there you had the Republicans … They hated blowjobs, drove us into revanchist wars of conquest in the Mideast, and also displayed a seething meanness towards the Gay and Lesbian community at the time. I had plenty of gay friends in Los Angeles by then and frankly did not understand the hatred. My gay friends loved to party, had great lives, and had an obvious affinity for blowjobs like I had. Why would anyone hate these people?
I was firmly a Democrat in terms of voting. They were the guys against big government in your bedroom, they were anti-war, and had at the time beaten back the more noxious tendencies of the 60s burn-outs. I never agreed with the Democratic line on gun control or taxes … but gun control seemed pretty settled at the time, and I was a broke 20-something in Los Angeles so taxes ultimately didn’t effect me because … well you need money to really hate taxes.
In 2008, I was a huge Obama fan. He seemed like my generation’s FDR. He was going to end the wars, he was going to check Wall Street power, he was going to restore the economy to something that functioned, which was really important for me at the time because I was barely getting by during the Great Recession.
Except … he really didn’t do any of that. Let’s be honest, he did none of that and instead made all those problems 100 times worse. Although he could deliver a great speech and sending Seal Team 6 to bust a cap on Osama Bin Laden’s face was pretty cool.
That same feeling though … that this was all a bit of a false choice and that voting was tantamount to the crowd at a Vaudeville show cheering until they got to see the blue puppet instead of the red puppet crept back into the edge of my mind.
I was still a nominal left leaning Democrat because they were still the party of personal freedom and they claimed to be anti-war. I guess they were less war-ish by then.
By 2016, I was married and had a pretty normal life in California. I’ll admit it — I just tuned out the 2016 election. I had really liked Bernie Sanders and couldn’t stand Hillary Clinton. Except … Bernie lost. A fool’s hope that guy. I really didn’t think Trump could win and I thought he was a narcissistic asshole. Full stop.
Did growing up in the Midwest and coming from a small city that had been devastated by free trade and methamphetamine and despair give me a unique perspective on Trump.
Fuck no. I was a full Californian by that point. Trump was just an asshole. Okay, an occasionally funny one but still.
And then he got elected. My wife (now ex-wife) soon dove into MSNBC nightly and we both ate a steady diet of Rachel Maddow. I just assumed it was all true. Russiagate. Corruption. And any day Trump would just be removed by the 25th amendment and we’d be saved by President … Mike Pence?
In the back of my brain, I really had this tickling feeling that absolutely none of it made sense and it was all bullshit on par with anime fanfic posted on Reddit. Also I was doing pretty well financially under President Trump. It was hard to deny.
But I lived in California and I was a Democrat and Orange Man Bad.
Then COVID came and slap the blue no matter who Pit Vipers off my face. I had long relied on the gym for my mental health and suddenly I couldn’t go to the gym. I was put on part time by my employer but I couldn’t collect Covid benefits because I made too much money. If I took out the trash or walked my dog without a mask on there would be an outraged white woman to yell at me. When my gym reopened illegally, I had to sneak in and out like a Jewish orphan in 1940s Poland.
When the BLM riots started and I watched my old neighborhood in Los Angeles get trashed I started to get the message.
You are a normal white guy. Fuck you. You don’t want to be locked in his apartment for two years. Fuck you. You support civil rights but also don’t think burning down cities is a great way to protest. Fuck you. You don’t want the public health department shutting down the gym. Fuck you. Oh and you are expected to work, pay taxes, and do every stupid thing we command. But also fuck you.
I was not welcome even though I voted like a good Democrat and said all the right things and supported all the right hashtag causes. It felt like I wasn’t welcome at the cool kids table anymore. But that was a blessing in a sense. I realized the cool kids kinda suck.
In 2019, I saw the Democrats much the same way I did in 1999. They were pro-personal freedom, pro-civil rights, and held back the creeping menace of Donald Trump. Even though that creeping menace was just a series of mean tweets.
In 2020, I saw the Democrats as everything I hated. Throwback 1960s era radical Communist who felt the need and the duty to control everything you did. Everything you saw. Everything you read. I mean they literally did engage in Thought Policing via cancel culture and I had just been too dumb to see it. Especially in California where Gavin Newsom pranced around like Stalin with a better hair dresser and a Beverly Hills dentist.
Where they always like that? Was I just too dumb to see it? That question bothers me. A lot. Was I just the dumb guy being made to feel smart so he’d vote a certain away and get fooled into giving up so much of his personal freedoms over a cold? It’s like when Jordan Peterson says you’d have been a Nazi.
2020 made me question everything. I didn’t vote because that was the first time I felt like absolutely no one represented me.
I still hold those values from the 1990s — I am very much in favor of personal autonomy and freedom, civil rights, and anti-war.
But I also don’t think government is capable of solving anything at this stage, I think we are abused by our tax system, I think pretty much everything and everyone is corrupt, and given the events of 2020 … you damn well better own a ton of guns because if they can take away your Planet Fitness membership, they will take away a lot more next time. I don’t think that most people are racist. I think there are exactly two sexes and we shouldn’t be using kids for gender experiments.
I also don’t think in retrospect Donald Trump was all that bad and I don’t believe he’s a threat to democracy.
Will I vote for Donald Trump? I really don’t know. Some policies I like, a lot I don’t, and in general I still don’t like the Republican’s impulse towards legislating morality. Especially the hardline Anti-Blowjob wing. Sometimes I think what Donald Trump will do in office doesn’t matter. He’s just the Raging Id of a tortured America Psyche that’s screaming at the Woke Left, ENOUGH… and maybe that is good enough.
I know one thing … I don’t want any part of The Machine again. Not after California. After I moved to Austin, I occasionally find myself in a bar talking to a typically confused 20 year old blue haired college student. I feel a bit like a Cuban Refugee who fled Castro listing to a Hippie explain the wonders of Communism.
And I feel the terror that that Cuban probably felt and think to myself, Poor child. You have no idea. You have no idea the evils I’ve seen and I pray you never bring those evils here.
Sincerely,
Politically Homeless
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