We currently have war, high Gas Prices, high Unemployment, and inflation because people didn’t want to vote for a black woman.

My grandfather got me into the habit of reading the news every morning. My mother got me into the habit of reading books because, according to her, everything that anyone would ever want to hide would be in a book, and she wasn’t wrong. I love reading the fine print, especially out of spite. Reading the news lately, though, feels exhausting and predictive, but unreal at the same time. One thing that we can say about the Trump Administration is that they are indeed efficient. They dismantled democracy brick by brick and are building monstrosities that they told us they would do very efficiently. They’re not effective, and there’s been no foresight in a lot of these policies, but they’re doing it quickly. All of this chaotic energy feels very unsustainable, but you can’t tell them that. Also, fixing all of the broken things from this administration may take way longer than four years for the next administration.

This administration keeps calling this one of the best countries in the world, and I don’t understand their metrics. We’re currently at war, and healthcare prices are some of the highest I’ve ever seen. There’s no reason that I should be scrolling my TikTok feed seeing women removing their IUDs themselves because they can’t afford the procedure, or they owe healthcare bills. This is the timeline where everyone was afraid to vote for the Black Woman who wanted to give everyone money towards their first home because they were afraid she would start a war and increase gas prices. We’re watching the education department be dismantled, data centers causing astronomical electricity prices, and billionaires getting the biggest tax breaks we’ve ever seen since the Ronald Reagan Era, and it all feels like we’re hopeless. The only hope is that people are seeing the light and sensing that they need to vote appropriately in the midterms. Elections matter, and not voting is still voting, and remember democracy is not a buffet. Voting or not voting on a single issue sounds great in a fantasy world, but all of those folks who voted third party because one candidate didn’t check all of their boxes are currently eating their words because their plates are emptier thanks to inflation.

Last year, I stood on the City County steps and spoke at the No Kings Protest. This year I didn’t. After the first one, they seem like pep rallies with no actionable items. Democrats are running on “we have to do x,y, and z the right way,” meanwhile, their counterparts are just doing it. There’s no question if, “can they do that,” in this administration, it’s very much giving, “watch me do this thing.”

Some Democrats are boldly coming out in opposition to the Trump Administration and yelling at them, but without policy change, there’s not much that they can do that we as constituents don’t already do. At least billionaires trying to bully other billionaires is more entertaining than the working-class trying to do it.

Current times feel like the billionaires are getting tax cuts, the poor and middle class are paying all of the taxes, and the billionaires are blaming us for being poor. It’s the worst game of Monopoly that I’ve ever participated in. When the next administration takes office, we should take a hard look at whether we want things to go back to the way that they were, because if it’s so easy to break democracy the way that it was, why rebuild it the same way?

Politicians please stop feeding me hope and feed me policy change because hope only lasts for so long. Hope is not sustainable. Hope leads to hunger for something more and that something is change in policy.