What happens when the community you felt so close to decides you are the enemy? A traitor.
I never felt like I belonged anywhere in society or in social situations. A quiet outcast since childhood. That’s why when in my 30s I finally found people who were “like me” I was over the moon. I found several communities of artsy rebels living on the fringe, engaged in ecological and social justice movements, open to alternative spirituality, and liberated from the social expectations that I could never live up to.
But now, those same people I felt a deep kinship with…
Hate. My. Guts.
To be clear, I was never a Democrat. I was more leftist than that. I considered myself to be left-libertarian or anarcho-socialist. Democrats weren’t quite left enough because they tended to side with big-money interests. I was more concerned with the working class, protecting the environment (protecting land from “development” and pollution, not greenwashing the movement into making everything about climate change), and human rights (in the original true sense of the word ie freedom, access to basic needs, and equal protection under the law).
So I was always critical of the Democratic Party and the DNC. And I was never alone in this before. It was common to hold the “representatives” of the left to account.
But for some reason, it became heresey for the past couple of years.
I spoke out against what the DNC was doing this time and all my fellow Bernie lovers turned on me.
They hate me because I am one of them, and yet I sympathize with the “enemy.”
They claim righteousness. But I say they’ve closed their minds and their hearts.
They are living in a doomsday alternate reality. They’ve already made their minds up that we will be living in a hellscape because Trump was elected, therefore, confirmation bias is working its predictable spell.
They are turning everything into an “I told you so!” Even when nothing warrants the response. News headlines are nothing but inflammatory clickbait and no one even reads the article, never mind going to other sources to see how they present the same story.
They are committed to their worldview rather than to the truth. Even if it makes them miserable.
At least they have each other.
But there is no room for traitors like me.
See, I am worse than Donald Trump himself.
I was on “their side.” I agreed with them on everything. I validated their groupthink identity. We had strength in numbers raging against the machine. And now, supposedly I became part of the machine.
And what is the logical conclusion to that scenario?
I must be eliminated.
I am not allowed to exist.
I am an affront to everything they hold sacred.
I know exactly what they think of me without asking because I used to think how they still think now. I saw the “enemy” and labeled them as cruel, close-minded, iron-fisted fascists. But I had the audacity to peek behind the curtain and step over the forbidden line. I entered into enemy territory to understand WHY they believe what they do.
I dared to see the enemy as human.
I know exactly how my tribe sees me and it is ugly.
(Judas kissing Jesus before he betrays him)
But what is the machine they are raging against? Because the other side is raging against one too. That’s what they don’t understand.
Both sides have a point.
But WHO has had the monopoly of power lately?
They can’t see the damage their “progress” has caused.
They refuse.
They are completely unwilling to put their ego down, and actually LISTEN to the other side. To do so is heresy. Blasphemy. A great mortal sin!
They can’t see how religious they’ve become.
How devout they are to their one true God.
But it is false.
Because they are hypocrites.
They claim to be about love, tolerance, justice, peace, and compassion.
But they have none if you hold a different opinion.
They have very little if you are someone they assign as “privileged” in modern society.
They seem completely unable and unwilling to step out of their comfort zone and open their minds to the possibility that the other side has a point. That they are human too and their concerns and their pain are just as real.
They can’t accept that.
They just want to puppet the same lies that keep them righteous in their own minds.
That’s all they care about.
They want to be right.
Even if they have to turn the world upside down.
See, I don’t think I’ve changed that much. I’m still open-minded. I still believe in free speech, human rights, peace, liberation, justice, and raging against the machine.
What I think really happened is over time, The Left has become the machine without realizing it. They are against everything they claim to be for.
It scares me sometimes how blind some of my friends are right now and what that could lead to in the future. More assassinations or attempts? Mobs and burning down cities? Civil war?
But I still hold onto hope for them.
Some of my friends may hate me for speaking out. But I will keep seeking the truth and sharing what I find. Hopefully, there will come a time when we aren’t so divided and they find room in their hearts for people who question the Democratic Party and what the world has become.
Please let them see.
<3>
Nicole