"Make America Great Again"

I know I've been M.I.A. for a while, and I'm sorry for anyone who actually cares. I've worked the last 14 days straight and I'm beyond exhausted. I'm burnt out. I'm angry. I'm miserable. And I'm frustrated. So much of that comes from the state of this country, though. Ben and I have begun talking seriously about leaving. If it was easy enough to pack up and find a job in a new country, I'd already have done it. I just can't handle it anymore. There are not enough anti-depressants in the world to make me feel better about things.

A while ago, I stopped adding family members on Facebook. I somehow ended up having completely opposite religious and political views from everyone in my entire family. This has caused issues on Facebook, and has led to instances where family members are no longer speaking to me. More recently, I've been deleting ones who are still left. My heart can't take it anymore. My heart can't take finding out that people I love and look up to are complete pieces of shit. How did they get there? Where does it come from? And what the hell happened to me that I'm nowhere near where they are on this stuff?

The most notorious instance is one that so many of my friends witnessed. I have a cousin - one whom I always admired and adored - who is no longer speaking to me. Last year, when gay marriage became legal across the country, as it should always have been, I posted a status in support of the new law. She posted a comment disagreeing with my support. She gave the usual objections: "if it's okay for them to wave a flag, why can't I wave one saying I'm straight?" "It's against God." Yadda, yadda. My messages blew up with LBGT friends telling me how stupid she was, and other friends telling me "thanks for the laughs." I had another cousin reach out to me and ask me to make amends before it was too late. It was already too late. Her excuses included protecting her children, and anyone who has gay children is a failure as a parent. Another family member, who I'm very close to, pointed out a transgender person once when the family was out to dinner, asking me if I saw the "shim" and telling me that "this is why my kids are confused. They see that, and then they ask questions." Honey, your kids are confused, because you don't answer their questions. There's nothing to be confused about. Some people are born "different." Everyone is an individual. Everyone thinks and feels and acts differently. We all find pleasure in different things. We all feel pain differently, and express ourselves differently. Some of us are wired differently. The ones who lack the compassion to see that and explain that are the real problems. This same family member's husband got himself removed from Facebook, because we kept getting into the gun debate. Listen, I understand the desire or the need to have something to protect yourself. A pistol is enough. There is no reason for anything more than that. And until we, as a country, recognize that, there will never be peace here. We'll never be safe. Every single person in the country can have a firearm, and all that will do will cause constant shoot-outs and crazy behavior. I'm terrified. Constantly.

I've also come to realize that pretty much every single person in my family is a Trump supporter. All of them. They also disagree with the Black Lives Matter campaign, one of them going as far as to say "white people aren't racist, but guess who is!!!" I had one family member who I am directly related to tell me that "Trump will get things done," another one tell me that they supported Trump, "because he wants to make people afraid of America again." That same person told me they want to vote for him, because "he's not a politician. I hate politicians." Look, I agree that there are no good candidates this year. But, TRUMP?! Come on. I live every day becoming more and more disappointed in the people I love. The people who raised me, and shaped me, and nurtured me, are just disappointing human beings. And honestly, without Facebook, I wouldn't know any of this. This stuff doesn't come up during family dinners, because I guess we know better. Or, everyone at least assumes we're all on the same page.

I would be lying if I pretended to be an expert on politics. I'm not. I've never even voted (rest assured, I will be this year). It wasn't until I started dating Ben that I even started following politics at all. But, these are all people who do follow it. These are people who believe that a man who praised Saddam Hussein for being good at "killing terrorists", and who wants to build a wall to keep out immigrants, and who wants to ban an entire religion consisting of over a billion people, would somehow be a good president. This is a man who objectifies women on a daily basis, who doesn't believe they should have rights. I can't imagine that there are many non-white, working class citizens who support this man. I can't believe there are so many women who do. I can't believe he's legitimately a viable candidate for president. What the hell has happened to us? Why is there so much hatred in the world, and this country? We're supposed to be a civilized country, and we're not. We're supposed to be the example and we're not. Anyone who doubts that Trump will turn us into a war-torn third-world country is not paying attention at all. Same goes for the people who believe that the Orlando shooting was religiously motivated. It was a hate crime. Against the LGBT community. Plain and simple. It has been proven that the man who committed that mass murder had no ties with ISIS (who we created, by the way). But, we see his tan skin and read his ethnic name and we set out for revenge. I had another incredibly close family member tell me that all of the local Muslim restaurants have gone out of business, because the owners fled the country after Orlando, in fear of retaliation. I genuinely don't understand how that's all these people can focus on. How many mass murders have there been in this country in the last year? In the last month? This week? How many of them have actually been committed by a Muslim? And when they're not, do we ever acknowledge the religion of the person who committed it? The boys who committed the Columbine killing so many years ago asked their victims if they believed in God before killing them. Why is that not talked about? There are a lot of these killings that are religiously motivated, but since this person didn't look American (which is ridiculous anyway, because none of us are actually American), that's what gets talked about. Why aren't we focusing on the fact that this person set out to specifically kill members of the LGBT community? Why are we not focusing on the fact that even though he was investigated by the FBI, he was still allowed to purchase a weapon that allowed him to kill and injure so many people? He was involved in a shootout with police before even entering the building, so the whole "good guy with a gun" bullshit doesn't work here. I just can't do it anymore. I can't sit here and watch while a bunch of lunatics kill innocent people and then watch people I love defend the lunatics and propagate the hate that started it. We need to be better. All of us. I don't care what your religious views are. I don't care what your sexual orientation is, or your political beliefs, or what your bank account looks like. We need to come together as people and stop thinking that any of us are better than anyone else. We're not. You're not. Just stop it. Stop being a piece of shit. Read articles before you post them. Do some research on UN-BIASED websites and learn about what you're really putting out there. How did we get so divided? How did we get here? And how do I leave?