On Grievances

Although hysterical liberal reactions to Trump’s victory were widely anticipated, they had an effect on me that I hadn’t expected: they offended me. Usually, we’re supposed to chuckle and laugh off the “moonbats” and carry on with life, but this time, due to the last four years, it was different.

Many times in life I’ve suffered the consequences of liberal governance, courts and culture. I’m from Seattle after all, and it’s to be expected. I figured it was just a fact of life in Western Washington, and one that I could put up with since I genuinely love this beautiful part of the world.

However, the lockdowns changed my attitude. I found myself suddenly out of work and stuck at home in a volatile domestic situation. Meanwhile, my neighborhood almost immediately began to go to seed, shopping was an ordeal and my youngest kid’s school shut down. When they finally let my child, then only six years old, back in school, I was forced to muzzle him before sending him off. For some reason this gave me a visceral feeling of anger, and I’m not just using that term loosely: my anger was a physical sensation welling up from my gut.

I tried to push back on social media and promptly got censored. The issues I raised were the lockdowns and the mass protests - some of which occurred in my neighborhood - over the overdose death of the middle-aged felon and general miscreant George Floyd while in police custody. I was met only with sneering contempt and banned or else simply censored with zero explanation. It’s a frustrating feeling to be censored when you have a legitimate concern, and even more so when a number of others share it and welcome the support.

Then there was the vaxx… Not that I was particularly opposed to the idea of a vaccine, but given that COVID was obviously not killing kids, I didn’t think it necessary to vaxx them. Unfortunately, the government of Canada, where the mother and custodial parent of my two older children lived at the time, had a different opinion. Their (now former) stepfather, sensing this as an opportunity even through his alcoholic haze, then used the Canadian restrictions at the border as an excuse to deny me visitation for a full six months. International custody cases are a very specialized subset of law, and expensive for this reason. It’s also very difficult to pursue legal redress when borders are closed, so there was nothing I could do about it. I had always religiously attended to my visitation, but due to the lockdowns I couldn’t do it during this time. My only consolation was that my kids were old enough to know that I hadn’t abandoned them.

The next issue that arose was an attempt to introduce my youngest to trans ideology at his elementary school, while he was in third grade. Having decided to raise my son in the Roman Catholic faith I had recently come home to, I felt this was an affront not only to my religious values, but a naked attempt to indoctrinate an innocent child into a novel and dangerous ideology. I did ultimately put an end to this, but at the cost of alienating myself from the teachers with whom I’d previously had a cordial relationship.

In addition to the above, there are many other problems that arose in my life due to the lockdowns and riots and their consequences, but at least I survived. The same can’t be said for everyone. I knew one suicide quite personally, several breakdowns, and saw the results of rampant fentanyl use and accompanying property crime due to depolicing and border non-enforcement, which continues in my neighborhood today. My cost of living has risen substantially, and inflation has swallowed all raises I received. Overall, the last four years have been an epic shit-show, and who’s responsible? It isn’t Donald Trump.

So now, when I see progressives whining and complaining about losing the election, I don’t really think it’s funny. In fact, it pisses me off, because they are responsible for the worst four years of American history that I have personally witnessed. They should be silent and ashamed of what they’ve done. They have victimized the majority of the American people, in many cases to their own personal financial and political benefit. And after all of the abuse of power, disregard for others, selfishness and dismal failure to govern in the interests of the people, they have the gall to call us fascists, ignorant, inhumane, etc.

No, not this time. We have to push back, and push back more, and keep doing so until they lose the notion that they’ll ever again be able to strip us of our freedoms over manufactured hysteria. Likewise, we can never again allow them to riot and burn our cities with impunity, all while holding their political opponents to the strictest legal standards. After all they’ve done, if all they get is a stern rebuke and consignment to political weakness they’re very lucky. In fact, that isn’t enough. Just as it was a mistake to let Eastern Block former Communists off the hook, those who committed abuses during the dark years of the Biden administration need to be held accountable.