Yes, StopTheSteal — You have stolen so much already.
You have stolen so much.
As if the repeated theft of the country’s resources and abuses of power weren’t enough, you had to steal and radicalize (former?) citizens of the country too. Unlike others, I am neither shocked, nor surprised, because it appears as if loss is the new normal.
We have lost so much. Loved ones. Community. Movement. Safety. Health. Employment. Tomorrow. Forever intertwined with systematic racism, this pandemic, this country, this grift of yours has come at the expense of the rest of us. You had to sacrifice your own unhappy lambs to the slaughter with your manipulation of their hate; the distortion of their reality both their demise and ours, as our hapless proximity endangers us too. It looks like even hate has been stolen.
The false image of democracy that your idolized GOP darling President Ronald Reagen packaged for the world has been stolen. Whatever lofty mirage of morality the federal systems aspired to has been dismantled, the parts thrown and sold in a variety of convoluted directions. That flawed yet pervasive vision of the country’s founders now replaced with the vile bile of your nonexistent heart.
Yesterday was no surprise, it hovered in the horizon for some time now. It took place on stolen land, maligned to the illusion of America. Who can be surprised such a thing dissipated, as it has been known to do in the past? When a peaceful Native man holds a shield they face years of imprisonment, yet a terrorist may employ the same device with selfies in a violent riot. When Black and Brown bodies peacefully protest for the right to live, they are brutalized, but when White bodies wield weapons and messages of treason, they successfully force access to high-security areas.
While our country attempts to make sense of your thievery, of how our country has been eaten alive from the inside, you continue to distort the truth and polarize us. You have tried to steal our ability to reflect, to see the worst horrors of one another within ourselves, and I am hopeful that remains intact, however, I am often dissuaded of the opposite. Culpability is now fuzzy as society attempts to block out the crazy to get through their day.
You stole my city. Trash related to images of your face have littered the streets for almost five years. Futures robbed, children neglected, and families separated. My neighbors were detained and deported because of the greenlight you gave for such to take place. You placed road blocks on paths to release the imprisoned human beings who are subjected to inhumane conditions at prisons and detention centers. You stole our public consciousness; this society remains too divided to process everyday how hundreds of children have been stolen, separated, and lost from their parents (a reignited American tradition at this point). We have a virus that is making humans unable to breathe and institutional racism that is also suffocating human beings, but somehow, the death can be packaged out of sight, out of mind for those with the power to improve the situation. I guess, those are the ones who get to continue breathing. You have stolen colonialism, reinvented it in your image, and marketed it as “anti-authority,” a double speak paradox.
You have stolen so much love; potential conversations, memories, and joy with family members who have become seduced with your hateful ideology that nestled a home inside their dark hearts. The space reserved for us in their heart, their mind, has eroded over time, and been replaced with the hateful, deceitful messages you deliver. Now, it is those messages that occupy their attention most of the time. You have stolen my sanity, as I try to reconcile daily survival with endless online petitions, GoFundMe’s, Hashtags, and other pleas that fail to truly remedy the reality of failed leadership. You stole my previous ability to not thinking about rape on a weekly basis; I am reminded of my traumatic experiences with chills every time I hear your voice. We clamor for the power to eradicate corruption within our government and for no one to be above the law, but the gape of my mouth and the grind of my teeth have caused a state of permanent, locked jaw. Where can the poor escape in this type of life? You escape disease with vaccines at luxury properties that public taxes and resources have helped in one way or another. Professional PR lie peddlers, cronies, wealthy politicians, and oligarchs absolve themselves of responsibility…just like the corporations who shift the blame of their pollution onto consumers.
Yes, stop the steal.
You have robbed us of enough already.
