The Current Fragmenting of the U.S.A (and how the 2020 Election can stop it): The Whole Bloody Affair

Prologue

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If there is any proof that at some point within the last few decades the United States vacated its title as the top nation in the world and may have even dipped in global status out of the top-tier bracket usually reserved for the Nordic countries, Japan, Germany, and Canada, it would be 2020.

2020 exposed and enhanced all of the weaknesses and setbacks and baffling inequalities that had been existing and growing within the United States in recent years. Social inequality, economic inequality, racial inequality, health inequality, lack of progress in a variety of fields that are happening in other developing and top-tier countries (transportation, infrastructure, environmental policies), reluctance to alter overly-longstanding policies and procedures (glares at the Electoral College), among other problems.

Oh and Nazis and conspiracy theory groups are suddenly thriving in politics.

Oh and the richest country in the world is also still struggling to contain the pandemic. We’ve been at this battle for over 7 months and we JUST NOW broke the record for most cases in a single day.

Oh, and after this extremely fast nomination to supreme court justice, McConnell and his asshole cronies have adjourned the Senate for ANOTHER vacation without an actual relief package to help struggling Americans in the middle of an ongoing pandemic. Why? Cause ‘merica.

All these things we’ve always claimed that only WE have, like freedom, liberty, chance to prosper, opportunity to be whatever you want to be and all that jazz, exists elsewhere. This is not the 1930s. This is not World War II where we are battling to liberate other poorer war-torn countries. The United States is no longer the hero in this story, as they’ve spent the last few generations damaging the structure of a variety of countries out in the Middle East and ESPECIALLY in Central/South America. It is time we confront this reality, as 2020 did a fantastic job not only killing Americans but exposing Americans as being mistreated with the third-world conditions we used to criticize dictatorships and communist governments of maintaining. First-world countries are surpassing us every year, including the ones that were our enemy in World War 2. Other countries not as financially fortunate are starting to catch up. Mexico has illegal immigrants coming from the United States for crying out loud.

Now of course, this deterioration did not start with Trump, but became widely more accepted as part of the American process under this administration. Black Lives Matter is constantly countered with All Lives Matter as some stupid way to denounce the inequality, no matter how heinous the actions. According to the Trump Administration, immigration is suddenly the source of why Americans cannot find jobs (which is not true). Refugees are suddenly being treated just as poorly as the terrorists that were captured post-9/11, while being criticized for not sticking around in their homeland and attempting to improve their conditions there-----without realizing that most attempts at “progress” had been thwarted by the United States in the first place.

Calls for socialized health and education to try to improve the country as a whole is being countered with ignorant yells of Cuba, Venezuela, and Soviet Russia, without realizing that these sort of improvements already exists in other countries (even the rather inconsistent United Kingdom, having affordable health care since the Cold War. A pandemic that has killed 230,000 people and counting is being considered a success story by the current president. In 2020, we are facing an economy that has slipped over 30%, an unemployment rate that remains high, homelessness and poverty on the rise, all this while billionaires enjoying recent tax cuts are actually becoming even wealthier even as the money has become difficult to find. It’s a mess.

As stated before, Donald Trump is not the source of the major problems plaguing the Americans in the middle and lower classes, but this is a man whose entire term has been consisting of dismantling all the forward (minimal, but still) progress that we had seen from previous administrations; from environmental progress (Paris Agreement) to pandemic prevention (cutting funding here), to being a beacon of hope for refugees (Muslim ban, The Pointless Wall, trying to kill DACA), to health care (Trying to kill ObamaCare), to foreign relations (Iran, Assassinations, China, European Union, WHO, Trump and his minions being a megaphone for Israel while ignoring their mistreatment of Palestine), to believe it or not police brutality and systemic racism (Trump Administration’s wild amount of deregulating) to even the rights of women (look at the upcoming nomination).

Even whenever he wasn’t simply trying to undo all the achievements, laws, policies, and guidelines set by a successful Black man out of racist spite, Donald Trump is a visual representative of everything wrong with America: Ignorant, racist, misinformed, untrusting, greedy, stupid, unhealthy, childish, oppressive, and a terrible representative of its people. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is definitely not going to solve all the problems, but at the very least he’s going to cut the bleeding and prevent the United States from becoming even more of a global joke.

This global joke following the United States began in the very start of this millennium with Bush Jr. and Cheney. After a wild election that was decided because of loose pieces of paper in ballots, we had the unfortunate terrorist attacks that would be immediately followed with two wars that we still haven’t fully finished---while the mastermind was hiding in a different country entirely, a complete avoidance of an escalating war happening under the border (the Drug Wars), two economic crashes, a pandemic, an extreme growth of inequality between economical classes, the banks ruining the country and still getting bailed out, increased violence in the Middle East (the last SIX presidents are responsible for this category).

Then once Obama got elected a wild re-emergence in racism, white supremacist groups, hate crimes, terrorist attacks, and that would all be accelerated once Trump started running in 2015 and the Republican Party sold their souls to the Devil to ensure a surprise victory in a hotly contested election. And I haven’t even gotten to the part about mass shootings, drone strikes, secret coups, no accountability for the housing market crash, us STILL (STILL!) having to battle for equal rights for Black Americans and even women in general, and how this current generation of kids and teenagers are going to somehow end up being even poorer than previous generations despite the U.S. economy remaining on top of the world. A lot has happened, obviously.

Can the United States recover? Of course it can, it has the money, resources, and people to accomplish the turnaround and secondary attempts to be in a constant state of improvement. Yes, there is plenty the United States is good at and there are plenty of positive things about living in this country. I’m not saying we’ve dipped into countries with serious ongoing struggles like your Haiti, or Libya, or Venezuela. But it is going to take a ton of work, a ton of structural changes, and many radical ideas to un-do the damage of decisions made in this administration as well as administrations of the past.

But it starts with voting for Joe Biden. It STARTS right here, non-negotiable. He definitely isn’t my first pick, and I’ll explain why we’re at this point in the near future, but before we dive into the four major pillars of the downward spiral of the United States, I have to be extremely clear about the fact that the solution to at the VERY LEAST stop the struggles happening in the midst of this pandemic is to ensure that the Democrats gain full control of the White House to begin cleaning up the disasters caused by the Trump Administration. And with an emergence of a faction of the Democratic Party ready to battle Biden, it won’t be the same ol’ Obama Administration that also cut the bleeding from the Bush years despite hostile pushback from the recently-tyrannical Republican Party.

The United States has slipped in global standing. This country is no longer the beacon of inspiration that it used to be, its no longer the model country to imitate in order to succeed. Coming up I’m presenting the four major reasons why, and how each of these issues can be fixed and/or eradicated.

But first things first, vote Biden.

Chapter 1: The Green God: The United States’ Deadly $pirituality

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It is extremely easy to paint the Republican Party as the party most associated with its obsession with money and wealth. And…well, its quite accurate. After all, in 2016 the Party decided to back the horse with ZERO experience in politics simply because he’s a savvy businessman (which…even then is slightly questionable considering the rumored debt Trump is currently engaged in). As a matter of fact, we can go back to 2012, when Mitt Romney’s business-mindset attracted the Party enough to nominate him to go up against Obama. And of course, there’s Ronald Reagan, who saved a sluggish economy with giant tax cuts and tax breaks----and in turn by crippling the middle class entirely and turning the wealth distribution into the shape of a clogged funnel. To this day, there are many basic rights constantly threatened in order to appeal to the rich and give them more ways to save/make money (the current Supreme Court nomination is being shoved through only to save money via elimination of ObamaCare with removing abortion rights as a consolation prize).

Part of what made Donald Trump the unexpected-yet-definite choice was his rock star status and how the Midwest and emptier portions of the country had this celebrity to look up to, this person they’ve seen on television going to THEIR town and spouting HIS wealth and how HIS changes will make them just as successful as he is. If it wasn’t the racist rhetoric and supremacist dog whistles attracting crowds, it was definitely his ability to attract those not usually invested or interested in politics but interested in $$$$$$$. Trump catered to all the strengths of the Republican Party marketing: money, freedom to make said money, and ensuring the least amount of restrictions to create opportunities of growth.

But funny story…the obsession with money swings on the other side of the pendulum as well.  

From most of Wall Street on the east coast, to the Silicon Valley titans on the West, many of the more notorious wealthiest Americans are Democrats or supposed liberals. So unlike what the stereotypes suggests, we have obscenely wealthy people on both sides of the plate and they ALL contribute to one of the biggest issues facing America: we have lots of money, but we want more, and we don’t really want to share our wealth, but we also don’t want to make the necessary changes to give the less-fortunate a proper chance.

The entire nation’s obsession with the almighty dollar is a definite setback and contributes greatly to the inequalities that we see today. The changes we need to see here starts with the culture: American culture has to completely change their mindset towards the way things need to be run. Is this achievable? Of course, but it’s going to require a complete mental retooling of the American consensus towards success, money, helping the less fortunate, and just how much money is enough to be comfortable.

The richest country in the world, a country where one of their STATES by themselves is a top 10 economy globally (California), has enough money to help literally every poor and struggling person within their borders. Through amazing marketing and propaganda, the highest-ups want you to believe that certain things like affordable health care, free education, housing for everyone, and even in the most extreme cases a universal basic income are nothing more than pipe dreams.

The propaganda that is scattered in this country wants you to believe that it is better for the country to have these 1%-ers owning most of the country’s wealth than it would be for the amount of billionaires to be limited through higher taxes that can be used to pay for many of the problems that need to be solved. The propaganda of being rich is always louder than the propaganda of being charitable.

This is why socialism ideas are drowned in anger, disgust, and screams about Cuba, while the media doesn’t bat an eye when companies like Disney, Wal-Mart, and Amazon can strongarm local and state governments, not provide proper pay considering their profits, and also cut tens of thousands of jobs when they want to give those pointless fat bonuses to their executives. This is why drug dealers get more negative press than companies that cut tens of thousands of jobs just to main well above profit----which scenario hurts more lives overall? This is why looters and rioters that separate from peaceful protests cause more negative press than the rich companies that requested millions in unnecessary financial aid and made it difficult for small businesses to obtain the same loans.

America’s propaganda about the almighty dollar wants you to believe that you have to earn your wealth, that people that ultimately become psychotic billionaires earned their way to the top. The sad truth is, every major billionaire maintains their status of being billionaires by cutting corners while simultaneously making it more difficult for the majority of Americans---whether it’s through avoidance of taxes, appealing to politicians that can cut their taxes, not paying their people enough, not being charitable enough, not spending enough money to pump money back to the economy that made them rich, overwhelming the competition, shifting their money so its untraceable and untaxable, (worthy of repetition) being in the pockets of politicians through secret deals and Superpacs, or a mixture of all this.

How are we okay with a country full of homelessness and poverty AND a man that inching closer towards being a trillionaire---and this is AFTER he split half his money during a divorce and making his ex-wife instantly the richest woman in the United States? MacKenzie Scott is worth 60 BILLION DOLLARS obtained nearly entirely through a divorce. Just ten percent of that money can pay for one MILLION families’ low-income rent for an entire year---which would nearly cover everyone who is homeless in America. That’s insane. Mike Bloomberg was a last-minute addition to the Democratic primaries, and spent 500 MILLION DOLLARS on his campaign, just to drop out quickly. And he only joined because of Bernie Sanders, but more on Bernie later.

You know we have a major gap in income and actual economy when during a pandemic the billionaires have become richer, and the underemployment numbers remain unfortunately strong. You know we have a problem when the income gap when the three wealthiest people in the U.S. own more wealth than the bottom 50% of Americans – 160 million people. What stings more is that I can guarantee you that nobody on the top 10% of the United States (who by the way own about 70% of ALL U.S. wealth) pays a higher percentage in taxes than people like you and me reading this. How are we okay with this? How are we okay with hard-working Americans busting their butts and making sacrifices to save whatever pennies we haven’t given to taxes, expenses, and a more expensive country overall when there are people and companies that profit greatly off said work without any effort?

Take Google for example. Google owns YouTube, and has a net worth of over $600 billion (would probably be worth more if they had not messed up the Google Stadia so badly). This is thanks to crafty marketing, a good assortment of product and services (except for the Stadia), and also destroying the competition and legally monopolizing the search engine concept while extending their reach to phones, games, and other products. $600 billion in value, and YouTube by itself is worth about $160 billion. A big reason for YouTube’s success is because of the content creators and the companies that invest time and material to the video-sharing app. What if I told you that none of these content creators even makes a PENNY per view of their material?

Lindsay Ellis, one of the better video essayists out on the internet, has created content that has resulted in nearly, get this, 100 million views overall---and this is on the lower end among successful content creators because she doesn’t output as much (being a quality over quantity essayist, her work is very good). Now remember, thanks to YouTube becoming an ad-friendly website, this means at least over 50 million pocket-sized advertisements her material has generated for Google—whether through her videos or pop-ups within the site pages. Her channel’s net worth? Only $250,000. Thanks to these clearly unfair practices, Lindsay has to rely on other methods to ensure that she pays her employers and contributors enough money and have enough for herself. She has made YouTube at least $50 million guaranteed, yet here she is not even halfway to a million in net worth via her videos.

Let’s go to the extreme side, Felix Kjellberg, a.k.a., PewDiePie. Like him or not, he’s built a very successful following which has led to 26 BILLION views and 107 million subscribers. These types of numbers easily generate at least $5 billion in ad revenue for YouTube/Google (and this is me aiming low). His net worth is nonetheless between $30-$50 million, earning around $7 million a year. Now, he’s living comfortably so it’s hard for some people to garnish sympathy, but this man literally has videos nearly every single day. PewDiePie works 90% of the year in marketing, planning, filming, editing, publishing, posting, and in a variety of mediums in order to achieve these stats, but is making a mere quarter of what he should be earning. This is the sort of inequalities that flies under the radar and goes unreported or doesn’t quite garnish the rage of other controversies.  

But everything stupid and unacceptable involving money has come to a head with 2020’s pandemic. All of the flaws and glaring inequalities has come this year. Trump Administration’s tax cuts, combined with his pumping of a trillion to a sputtering stock market, a salvation of many industries that had been successful for a generation leading up to a world-stopping event (looking at you airlines and cruise industries) has allowed for the United States’ economy to temporarily appear stable to appeal to Trump’s fans and closest Republican allies (all in the rich side). But eventually that image crumbled over the summer as the economy collapsed nonetheless. But instead….the blame shifted to China, the virus, the lockdowns, and Democrat governors and mayors enforcing the very same restrictions and guidelines provided by the Trump Administration.

Yet instead of re-accessing the situation and providing additional help to the most vulnerable, the storyline about how we have to re-open the economy instead took shape. Before you know it, the United States pretended like the pandemic was over and re-opened as if we can go back to normal. Because of this, layoffs are continuing, evictions are going up, poverty numbers are growing, mental health in the country is shredded, drug usage is up, suicides have gone up, and in the midst of ALL this, we STILL don’t have a second coronavirus relief package, and Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk regained all their income lost when the stocks crashed---and became even richer after that. The coronavirus exposed this country as one that literally cannot handle itself when money isn’t flowing as much as they’d like. As a note, we can lose a few percentage points of our GDP and we’d STILL be leading the world.

The solution here is simple: we have to stop believing that redistributing the wealth to better serve not only this country but neighboring countries in need is a pipe dream.

If they were pipe dreams, then why so much work to downplay the rhetoric of a more progressive and socialized America? Facebook’s Zuckerberg was revealed to have approved a plan to toy with the algorithm of Facebook and its partner apps to ensure that progressive websites and articles are limited in its traffic. The 2020 Democratic Primaries from the media to the DNC was against Bernie; it became Bernie vs. Everyone Else, and it was so bad that even the progressive Elizabeth Warren was distancing herself little by little from the Bernie Bros. label despite having similar policies. So even though Bernie Sanders had a definite lead early into the primaries, it wasn’t long before the tide turned against him.

There’s a wild rise in democratic socialism within the Democratic Party and the independent voters scattered across the country. The Squad has gained so much power than even Nancy Pelosi, who is supposed to be on the same team, has spoken like a threatened woman when discussing the policies of the Bernie Sanders chapter of the party. Nancy Pelosi herself, one of the more prominent Democrats, is also on the crosshairs just as much as the Republican senate when discussing major changes in the coming years to stop the bleeding affecting tens of millions of Americans. So before we go further, I’m going to announce that this will have a far-left bias because I am a democratic socialist with a strong appreciation for Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This doesn’t make me unable to listen to opposing views, but this is the defining proof that my solutions to the money culture problems is definitely more Che-Lula and less Obama-Clinton.

We have to have to have to have to redistribute wealth much better. We have to close out all the tax loopholes that corporations and obscenely rich people expose year in and year out. We have to establish a base tax that must be paid yearly for those making specific amounts, so even if they STILL manage to cut corners they are still going to pay a substantial amount to return the favor to the country that made them rich enough so that they never have to worry about money ever again. First things first, we have to make sure that the additional money, the cash that’s so excessive the owner of said money will never get around to spending it, is taken and used to help people, places, towns, cities, parks, environments, infrastructure, transportation, health, education, etc.

We have to tighten the difficulty in becoming mega billionaires, we have to exponentially increase the taxes towards that 500 million mark---because even that amount is guaranteed to set you and your future generations for life (barring stupid mistakes like the Trump family). First things first, money people don’t need has to become money that can be put to better use elsewhere outside a bank account for the rest of eternity.

We have to re-adjust our spending. We spend way too little on health and education, and spend way too much on military and warfare. We spend six times as much on military as China, who is second place---and on top of that we’re fourth in the amount of police we have nationwide (China is destroying us there, but the article is about us). In the past century we’ve been arguably involved in more military conflicts than any other major nation in the world. Since 1990 we’ve been involved with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Kuwait, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya, and even Haiti---and this doesn’t include funding OTHER militaries like Israel and hidden incidents that we probably don’t even know about. We should fix ourselves first before trying to fix the world. We have to pour money into health and education so that every American has proper opportunities to maintain their health and their pursuit of knowledge.

On that note, making college free and health care free and affordable for all is so that we can remove the stigmatism of profiting off of the sick, the poor, and those trying to better themselves. Education and health should NEVER be used for profit, its wild that universities can make their billions off of students and yet not be willing to pay the athletes that helps make them said billions before and during the semester. Its wild that we have companies charging thousands of dollars for medicine that can be found at a tiny fraction of the price in other countries. We are too rich to force Americans to spend intense buckets of cash on their health, its not fair to have such an extremely high GDP and yet still not reward the Americans that have helped establish such high profit margins with manageable expenses. I will not accept living in a world where a multi-billionaire buys 15 houses in the same zip code, while on the same country we have families living in motels, cars, old RVs, and sometimes in tents.

For the coronavirus, we have to pump billions into the working and lower class with the same vigor that the Trump Administration did for the stock market and large profitable industries that suddenly couldn’t handle a single year of money in the red. During this pandemic, every American making less than 500k a year should get a monthly check regardless of whether or not they are working, and we should increase the unemployment checks until the pandemic has been more handled. We have to find ways to move some of those excessive profits created because of a pandemic, and shift it to help Americans survive the virus and all the after-effects. It’s unacceptable that at one point, Amazon was making thousands of dollars a second, yet there were hospitals struggling to maintain supplies needed to help the influx of sick individuals.

What is probably the biggest problem that has plagued the United States this millennium, has made the pandemic infinitely worse, and will continue being a burden that harms millions of Americans nationwide is the cult, the obsession, the religion of money that manifests itself in American culture, media, and mindset. We have to do a better job at working together, at not pointing fingers (because like I said, BOTH major political parties have people with extreme wealth and does not do enough to combat the problems), at finding solutions that can be achieved by additional wealth that is taxed, at ensuring that multi-millionaires and especially billionaires pay their fair share, and most importantly rigidly tone down our reliance and value on the idea of making as much money as humanly possible while stepping on smaller competitors on our path to the top.

There is enough money in the United States to fix nearly every problem (with a cost attached) that exists. We can have high-speed trains and subways nationwide. We can have free health care and education. We do have enough money to fix all the bridges and roads in need of repair. We can create a strong internet connection nationwide, even reaching into the deepest regions of Kansas and Montana. We can save the environment and battle climate change ourselves without going bankrupt. We can give everyone affordable housing and it won’t break the nation bank. Lastly and most importantly, we can severely tax the top-third wealthiest people of this country and they wouldn’t have to sacrifice a single thing, while giving us additional funds that can be used to improve the overall health of a country that’s rich in value, but poor in health.

But it all starts in devaluing money. Money has to stop being this country’s primary religion.

Chapter 2: USA Deserves to be Che'd: How American Fears and Greed Severed an Entire Hemisphere

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Check if this sounds familiar: the uncaring government has connections to a select few constantly making money off their decisions. Most of the wealth, resources, and prosperity is being enjoyed by a small percentage of citizens in the country. The government doesn’t like the free press or any anti-administrative talk and makes efforts to silence it while pouring out tons of fake news to create the illusion that everything is going fine. Even though the country is making money, the poor and middle class is receiving none of it; while their leader is profiting off the pain and corruption along with his friends, and striking down any groups or individual dissidents.

Sounds like the United States today, right?

Well, this is actually Cuba during the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista----before Che and Fidel Castro started a revolution and drove him AND the country making them this way---the United States of America.

Complete contrary to popular belief, Cuba was NOT going well at all for Cubans before Fidel Castro took over, and the main reason why the rivalry between him and the United States began was because Castro’s government stopped taking bribes and favors from the American government’s corrupt corners and effectively drove them all out. Havana pre-Castro was Caribbean Las Vegas for the American mobsters and politicians and the secret elite, and that era was over after the Cuban Revolution. Argue all you want about what happened afterwards (which of course….also wasn’t good, as Castro definitely backed away from his initial promises), but this is one of the strongest examples of a Latin American country’s existence being poisoned by their larger, richer neighbor constantly profiting off of poorer growing Latin nations.

The United States today is Cuba during a dictatorship period, and therefore should be and deserves to be Che’d. We need a revolution to ruthlessly shake up the current government, because it no longer really represents us, but instead a small minority that profits off of the discontent and disenfranchisement of others.

Few years ago, on a day off in particular while exploring Epcot, I was at the Mexican Pavilion to watch the mariachi perform. The last song they chose was what is notoriously considered as Venezuela’s unofficial national anthem: Alma Llanera, written in 1914 and to this day a massive staple of Venezuelan social events and parties---usually being the closeout song. They performed it beautifully, as usual, but what was different was this one woman. Even as I type it, it brings me chills and tears to remember her reaction.

She was singing in joy and in pain along with the band. She had behaved with amusement throughout the performances, but at this moment, all her emotions poured out. She was done, gone, didn’t care who was watching her weeping. After the performance was over and the crowd mostly dispersed, the lady went up to the mariachi and shook their hands and talked to them for a bit. I don’t know how to explain to you, how I know, but her story was exposed as the song played, and as she clearly was lost in the moment.

This woman misses her home, and clearly, she’s in pain as to what has become of Venezuela.

The United States in the past century has become a top destination for displaced Latin American immigrants, but the part of the story that history books don’t point out often is that the United States is responsible a majority of the problems that Latin Americans around the hemisphere face when dealing with their governments sometimes damaging their own homelands.

The most understated section of United States history is their horrendous behavior towards Latin American countries and Latin Americans in general, which has resulted in mass displacements in a variety of countries on this hemisphere. This has been ALWAYS a part of American history, starting with the United States essentially stealing land from Mexico to committing a literal 9/11 on foreign soil (Look up Chile’s September 11th terrorist attack, which was funded by a socialist-fearing CIA) to Reagan basically helping destroy Central America, Bush Sr. literally invading Panama and displacing the very dictator they had been helping for years, and even as recently as when the United States went after Bolivian elections (with seemingly the support of Elon Musk and his sketchy background) and it backfired completely. Evo Morales as we speak is probably on his way back to Bolivia.

You go through the list of Central American and Caribbean countries, and you’ll see dirty American fingerprints all over them: USA-supported dictatorships (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Argentina, Guatemala, Chile, Panama, Paraguay), USA-supported and funded governments engaging in war against their own people (Guatemala, Argentina, El Salvador, and Cuba—also United States has bombed Puerto Rico on at least one occasion), CIA-linked assassinations, coups, and terrorist attacks (Che’s assassination in Bolivia, deadly bombing of a Cuban flight, Chile’s 9/11, Dominican Republic Civil War, coup against Peron, potentially a coup against Morales in Bolivia), and we also can’t ignore the sanctions that harms the people more than the governments (Cuba, Venezuela) and the United States’ continuing avoidance of tackling the drug wars properly (which hurts Mexico and Central America).

Everything I have mentioned here has happened within the past century, which makes all the sense in the world why the Latino population has grown so much in the United States----because a majority, nearly all of us, are refugees, are immigrants that have seen our homelands struggle, are people who want a proper future for our families. Even myself, I am the grandson of a political prisoner and refugee. Yet to this day, the Latin American struggle remains severely underrepresented in American politics, and is not accepted with the seriousness it deserves. Your two biggest groups of immigrants entering the United States are: those fleeing the violence and war in the Middle East, and those seeking a new life from the ashes of cruel decisions that shattered their homelands in Latin American countries.

Venezuela’s current displacement of its people is among the biggest in recorded history. Mexico is encountering one of the most violent years in its entire history thanks to the El Chapo arrest developing additional turf wars. In a perfect world, all our Latino homelands are fine and improving and thriving (and there are examples of good overall success: Uruguay, Costa Rica, Panama, soon Bolivia), and there’s no need for the desperation to seek a better life in a country with the resources to provide said life. Nobody scours through a foreign country for days and weeks by the mercy of God while walking on foot and among strangers in caravans and secret journeys if it’s not because there literally is no other choice.

Yet the United States government’s current attitude towards Latin American immigrants and refugees is simply: “don’t bother trying to come here, we’re making it very hard for you to even attempt this.” But the thing is, and like it or not, the United States has a responsibility to fulfill to help those that have been displaced mainly because most of the chaos that is happening today is because of the United States itself. Venezuela and Cuba are rocked with horrifying sanctions that exist only because the United States’ Republican leaders will condemn anything leftist until they die----even though they wouldn’t bat an eye and cooperate with other countries also with sketchy behavior (Saudi Arabia, China, Israel, China—and this is worthy of repetition because their history is especially rough). Also adding to the frustrations is how Trump is spending more time beefing up Israel’s partnerships than trying to enhance United States relations with his own neighbors.

Think about the displacements we see in South America when compared to the displacements of Europe in the past three decades. The era of European immigrants going across the Atlantic for a new life in America is over. The era of EVERYONE wanting to come over here to seek new opportunities is over. Time to grow up and see the new realities, especially the reality concerning that most that are risking their lives to enter the United States are because they feel like they don’t have a choice.  

Why do you think there’s so much more movement happening on this side of the world? Why do you see so many structural government shifts on this side when compared to Europe and West/South Asia? And why do you think we haven’t seen a Latin American Union similar to the European Union, which has allowed for the continent to grow? Take a guess, and the answer is related to a flag with 50 white stars.

Of course, we can make the argument that it should be up to the governments on the Latin American countries to provide the necessary changes. Not totally wrong there, if we had better and stronger politicians on our homelands this could ease most of the pain. But take the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Venezuela, Chile, Guatemala, Bolivia, among others: ALL of them changed their government, picked a leader with a different approach, but was met with hostility from the big bad leftist-fearing shadow of the United States. So how can a place like Cuba recover from a Batista dictatorship that saw 75% of their island essentially belong to the U.S., if the U.S. is trying to overthrow it from the getgo and then ultimately hammer the island with sanctions and a black mark that sticks to anyone that is linked to Castro?

How can Guatemala or Nicaragua improve if the U.S. funds their wars and escalates their conflicts because there are some leftists in power? How could Chile become a better version of itself if the CIA literally came in and destroyed the capital city and forced their president to commit suicide? How can the Dominican Republic improve from the post-Trujillo days if the United States didn’t approve of a democratically-elected leader and came in to shift power to a Diet Country Club version of Trujillo?

Let’s fast-forward to today, after politicians and presidents from BOTH political parties have done more harm than good to all their neighbors underneath them in the entire hemisphere. But under the Trump Administration, the discontent and mistreatment towards Latin Americans reaching the lowest of lows:

*deep breath*

We have tent cities at the Mexican border with Trump’s internationally illegal behavior of restricting refugees from even entering the country for an opportunity, we have permanent family separations (unlike what you were told, was created during THIS term) as a way to dissuade refugees from trying to enter, we have Border Patrol and ICE revving up their tactics and outright malicious behavior (and also receiving extreme ideas from Trump Administration, like shooting fleeing refugees in the legs to slow them down), ICE detention centers spreading disease, extreme discomfort, and even unnecessary surgeries on their frightened victims; we have the Trump Administration blaming Mexico for “sending their worst,” and bullying their Southern neighbors to becoming the placeholder for refugees and immigrants and immediately putting them in danger---

 *deep breath*

We have Trump cultists carrying out crimes and even massacres under the misguided grumblings of said president (El Paso), an overall increase in hate crimes, racist attacks, and incarceration against Latin Americans nationwide especially at the border with the infamous cages and aluminum foil and helpless Latinos trapped like sardines, a dangerous increase in anti-Latino sentiment amongst THEIR OWN PEOPLE (the unfortunate adapt or die approach)---

*deep breath*

Sanctions levied against an already-damaged Venezuela, removal of all progress between the U.S. and Cuba under Obama, refusing to even help Major League Baseball try to safely transport Cuban baseball players, Trump publicly calling certain Latin American places shithole nations, Trump also constantly using dog-whistle approaches to scare his core fanbase with the caravan horror stories about criminals and rapists, and in even one incident largely forgotten, claiming there was a “discarded prayer rug found at the border,” and lastly increasing his demands to re-open the country after it was discovered that a majority of the victims of the coronavirus were not his people, but actually Latinos and Black Americans.

Yes, ALL this has happened in the last four years. It might be hard to remember all the injustices, but they did happen, and continue to happen.

Of course, I will never compare and claim that one oppression of a population is bigger than another, because of course Latin Americans were never slaves like Black Americans for centuries. And even though Latin Americans’ land loss in North America doesn’t compare to the land lost by Native Americans, it is undeniable the mistreatment we’ve seen in recent years. As a matter of fact, recently Canadian courts ruled in favor for refugees fleeing to the Canadian border because the mistreatment in the United States, a place that’s supposed to be a safe haven, was seen as equally a worse option than staying in their country of origin.

Latin Americans are the biggest rising force in the United States, and part of the keys to improve this country is for the government to start accepting us as a powerhouse but constantly persecuted minority group, and one that deserves respect, restitution, help, and most importantly a seat at the table. It is impossible to undo all the damage of the past century, but at the very least while each of these affected countries tries to work towards improvement, Latin Americans in the United States needs to be protected from the racism, bigotry, and boogeyman persona created by the Trump Administration. These sticky stereotypes and misconceptions about Latin Americans has to cease, and a strong component to this is to start respecting differing views on how a country should be run.

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s democratic socialist ways has its similarities to other leftist, socialist and Marxist viewpoints held by the very same politicians and leaders that the United States has feared over the past several generations. Part of the solution for improvement is to accept foreign ideas, listen to ideas that were considered scary in the past, try to comprehend that this diverse country may not want to continue running in the same way anymore. Maybe Latin Americans can provide the keys for actual improvement, instead of relying on broken government systems that turns elections into sporting events and gives us rich idiots like Bush, and celebrities like Reagan and Trump. Look at how well Brazil did under Lula, look at Evo Morales’ changes to Bolivia. And there’s Chile, the richest Latin American country per capita prepared to rewrite their entire constitution (created during a U.S.-sponsored dictatorship) to better represent its people.

It makes no sense for the country that is diversifying fast being run by the same dated mindsets, by the same types of politicians, and by people that skip entire lines of required progress and have no place being allowed to decide what is best for the 60 million Latin Americans that live within the American borders. It also makes less sense to not try to actually develop stronger relationships with Latin America in general. There are ways to be involved without trying to interfere and change up their entire damn government.

Trade deals, softer, more organized stances on immigration, more willingness to work on tackling major problems plaguing the hemisphere (the drug wars, the drug cartels, the ruthless gangs scattered in Central America that originated in California), global warming, deforestation, extreme poverty that we’re seeing in Venezuela and that we’ve seen for too long in places like the Brazilian favelas, and an overall stronger understanding of the diverse cultures and people you’ll find from the Mexican border all the way down to the Patagonia area. I’d love to see apologies left and right, especially to Chile, but another way to “apologize” is to mend the destroyed bridges. Peace among worlds, stronger understanding among neighboring nations leads to an overall improved environment altogether. Outside of the United Kingdom (which has ALREADY dropped in global standing and they haven’t even fully left yet), the European Union is a good example of this.

Immigration is a HUGE issue I demand to see fixed to better not just America, but all of Latin America. Those tent cities at the Mexican border relying on a financially-struggling and pressured Mexican government have to go, all those people deserve to be moved to American soil as we seek solutions to all the problems connected to each refugee, immigrant and aspiring American. We need to better the process, spend more money to create an efficient system to allow those who want to come here, to come here and immediately begin returning the favor to the United States through taxes, work, and by bringing their culture to the melting pot. Most important, ICE has to be dismantled completely, they’ve devolved into a heartless terror organization that does nothing good for the country.

Side-Note: The United States globally is 145th in population density, which makes the U.S.A. less crowded by size than places like Puerto Rico, Guam, Ireland, Japan, Colombia, Honduras, Virgin Islands, Dominican Republic, and EVEN MEXICO. So the next person that argues that the country is too full to fit more people is going to be slapped across the face with this factoid.

Latin Americans are here to stay, and in the next half-century barring additional earth-shattering events like this year’s pandemic, might become the largest demographic in the United States entirely---scattering themselves all over the Southern line from California to Florida. But it boils down to what happens in the hemisphere. We’ve already seen Mexico in the midst of its problems see their displacement numbers drop, as Mexicans are not flocking to the United States like in the past. Who knows, maybe Venezuelans will return to their homeland, maybe we’ll see more Colombians return to a country that has finally fully shed itself from the brutal Pablo Escobar and civil war days. Maybe we’ll see an improved Central America, a stronger Caribbean, a Brazil that can return to its Lula time period of drastic changes.

But until then, the United States HAS to stop reverting to its coup-infested ways *looks at Bolivia* and work on improving its own relations with the Latin Americans living here---especially after a history of horrendous actions and a Trump Administration that has completely damaged the way the rest of the country looks at Latinos and Latinas. You cannot be considered a top-tier country if you consistently make life difficult for an entire demographic that actually dominates an entire continent.

Nosotros merecemos mucho mucho mejor

Chapter 3: The Obamacrats vs. The Squad: The Upcoming Civil War of the Democratic Party

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Mid-February 2020, the Democratic primaries were being owned by Bernie Sanders. Even if the turnout wasn’t as strong as he had wanted (those inconsistent voting rules about primaries are not fun), he nonetheless owned the polls, the amount of donations, and the overall amount of money racked up through donations. Bernie Sanders had a surprisingly strong run in 2016 (which was derailed by a strong Hillary Clinton campaign followed by a DNC that didn’t want him there in the first place), and even after his loss and the election, he remained one of the most popular politicians in the entire country.

Then came South Carolina, then came all the other presidential hopefuls siding with Biden (even progressives not wanting to drag out a potentially losing battle like Andrew Yang and Elizabeth Warren), an extremely rough Super Tuesday, and the rest is history.

Bernie Sanders once again couldn’t get out of the primaries, but nonetheless delivered the most controversially progressive agenda in generations, and bringing forth a variety of strong conversations that became enhanced by the pandemic that quickly followed. Ideas that would have actually helped a United States that was getting killed by the coronavirus: health care for all, more money dedicated to health, more money to help policing and police accountability, available education for all without price tags, much higher taxes for the richest bracket---a group that has managed to become even RICHER in the midst of a pandemic, much more financing to fight the environment, an environment that clearly has rebelled against the planet in 2020, and more rights for prisoners—an issue politicians would normally never touch. 

Bernie Sanders has always been ahead of the curve, has essentially a nearly perfect track record of standing up for what is right, has been on the right side of history even when at the time he was vilified for it (Reagan’s Central American relations, the Iraq War, his battles post-Wall Street Housing Crash), had consistently strong polling numbers among ALL parties, not just Democrats (surviving Fox News town halls MULTIPLE times), had strong support from underrated political demographics like independent voters, Muslim-Americans, and the fastest-growing demographic of all: Latin American immigrants and citizens. NONE of this mattered however, because he’s not the typical Democratic status-quo with the deep centrist connections, and the end result was Joe Biden, a longtime Democrat with those crucial connections to the Clinton and Obama administrations. Of course Biden, who started slow but closed out quite strong, is a million times better than Trump, but he really isn’t the man to provide major, drastic, and extremely necessary changes to the process and to the way the United States is run.

What makes zero sense in American politics is how the most popular politician after the 2016 Election was actually the candidate that couldn’t get out of the primaries (yes, look it up, Bernie Sanders polled higher than Trump AND Clinton come Jan/Feb 2017). Then years later the candidate that drew the strongest support in donations and at the polls, even at times breaking records, once again could not get out of the primaries and had no viable path to the White House without risking splitting the Democrat vote to favor Trump and the dated, flawed winner-take-all electing process in which a mere 20-25% of the entire country can vote somebody in. Why would anyone want to vote after seeing the statistics related to electoral results and how sometimes they don’t even contribute to the eventual winner? Bush Jr. and Trump won despite losing the popular vote. This sort of thing harms the chances of true progressives and third-party mindsets to potentially wreak havoc at an election.

So even though Bernie lost, Biden won, and the centrist Dems are happy, come 2021 if and when Joe Biden wins the presidency, he’s going to be taking on an upcoming battle I’m positive he’s not anticipating:

A political civil war within his own party.

The Republican Party is way more fractured than they would like for you to believe, it’s just that they’ve gone quiet and complacent over what has emerged within the Party---with Trump shifting the rhetoric far-far-right, the MAGAs, the burst of KKK and Neo-Nazi and white supremacist enthusiasm taking over the Red states and the White House. But I’ll bet you anything that if Trump and Co. get slaughtered in the upcoming election, then there will be hell to pay and the Republican Party is going to be doing a lot of in-fighting to figure out what went wrong, who to blame, and who on earth to rely on going forward.

The Democrats however also have a fight brewing, and it’s between the strongly-progressive Democratic Socialists led by Bernie Sanders and The Squad going up against the Obamacrats, which is led by Biden, Obama, Pelosi, and the fragments of the Clinton Era. Both parties are united in killing the kkkults related to Trump and a Republican Party that has sold their soul to the orange devil----but they are divided in what exactly transpired and how we should progress moving forward, and how much structural change is actually needed.

One of the biggest issues plaguing the United States is that the two-party process makes it extremely difficult for stronger progress from one side of the political table to even take place. There are way more Democrats than Republicans in this country, but struggle to maintain in control of the White House while maintaining the morality that the Republicans (via voter suppression, dirty tactics, gerrymandering) have fully abandoned in the last two decades. Nowadays, Democrats seek change, Republicans merely seek victories.

As the Republican Party in Washington has made complete messes throughout the previous 30 years, you have the Democrats having to clean up the mess and playing it safe instead of seeking alterations and affordable revolutionary ideas that has benefitted other countries like Bolivia’s increased socialism, Brazil’s intense funding of poorer neighborhoods (under Lula’s reign), Ecuador’s legalizing of gangs, Mexico’s upcoming complete legalization of marijuana, Canada and the Nordic countries’ health care, Germany’s free higher education, Chile’s rewriting of their entire damn constitution by selected citizens (this is worthy of repeating, for this is such a bold action), among other ideas scattered worldwide that can easily be implemented here.

Clinton had to (try to) clean up the messes caused by the 1980s Reagan/Bush era. Obama had to clean up 8 years of Bush with the wars and the economic crashes that was caused by multiple previous administrations. Now, Joe Biden is going to have to hide behind-the-scenes while trying to untangle the webs of chaos caused by the Trump Administration-----and he may not even be the most equipped candidate for this job but this two-party system doesn’t give us many actual choices (you could claim third-party or freakin’ Kanye West, but that’s the equivalent of placing your ballot in the toilet). But these political campaigns about cleaning up messes and not making drastic changes is where the Democratic Party tends to split.

The lack of political aggressiveness also harms Democrats, and ultimately, us, the American citizens. If it was The Squad and not Nancy Pelosi running the House, Trump would have been impeached much earlier and put on a slower, more methodical trial from the Mueller Report findings as opposed to a controversial phone call that was a rather tall order to prove as a presidential removal worthy action. Instead of silly tweets sounding like angry parents, if we had progressives ruling with more power in the House there would be more accountability and more action. The Democratic Party is ruled by politicians who has (some of) the right ideas but collectively have zero ideas on how to handle bullies and those that break rules as well as win those 50/50 fights. Trump Administration has been a disaster from the start, but the centrist Democrats definitely have not helped with their inaction and public displays of discontent followed by…nothing. And I’m positive the more brutally honest crew known as The Squad is sick of it.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is arguably the most popular Democrat in the White House right now not named Bernie Sanders, and she doesn’t have the full support of the centrists. Whether its Israel/Palestinian relations, the impeachment decisions post-Mueller, the Green New Deal, defunding the police, packing the Supreme Court come January, among other ideas, AOC might as well be in a different party. In a better nationwide political system, Bernie Sanders would have his own party and they would still have an equal opportunity to pursue positions in government and compete in elections. But it’s a two-party system, and the Squad is stuck with the other Democrats while battling the supremacist administration.

But in January, if the Democrats have full control, then this is the moment for Bernie and his supporters to demand change.

Under the right circumstances, come January 2021, expect inter-party battles about: the Supreme Court, the environment, the policing system, how to handle the crimes committed in the last administration, the coronavirus relief, finally getting intense money out of politics (superpacs have to go, they’re bad for both parties), the Electoral College, the tax brackets, gerrymandering, 25th amendment, statehood for U.S. territories, helping Puerto Rico and the territories missing representation, voting rights act, marijuana, the prison system, defunding the military, free education, free health care, and many other issues always touched lightly by the Centrists and Center-Left peeps, and viciously embraced by the far-left progressives.

This is the most-Left and the strongest the progressives and the socialists have ever been, in the White House and the public consensus. And let’s be honest, the Republican-skewed United States of America has seen a lot of problems develop because of that Manifest Destiny Bootstrap-based mindset. It is definitely time for the ghosts of Bernie Sanders’ unsuccessful primary campaigns to re-emerge and enter the White House stratosphere as Washington D.C. enters full Democrat control for the first time since 2009 (which only last two years before Republicans made politics qwhite difficult, for those of you wanting to scream at Obama’s lack of progress during his two terms).

The Democrats, despite the poor showing from the centrists since 2015, after seeing the United States completely destabilize and fall apart under a far-right administration full of complacent Republicans and brutally vicious policies, deserves to be back in full power------but under more scrutiny of the rising powerhouse known as Bernie Sanders, The Squad, and Democratic Socialism.

Chapter 4:  Manifest Destiny vs. Sins of the Past

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This is arguably the biggest obstacle of all: the United States ultimately admitting its sins and moving forward.

This is the biggest setback that has always prevented America from actually being “great.”

Make America Great Again? Truth is, that despite being a country with many strengths and benefits, its never actually been fully great. And it definitely isn’t great today. Its actually much worse now.

Even during the best times of the 20th century like the Flapper Era, the Eisenhower Era, the Clinton Era, and that early 2010s boom under Obama, there were still scores of Americans and people living within these borders needlessly suffering. Even during the prosperous era of the Reconstruction Period, where Black Americans had gained their freedom and were developing political and economical power, we had the resistance from racists, Confederate loyalists, and supremacist groups pushing back by any means necessary.

The country was founded on slavery, so no way can a country be “great” when a population of their people are slaves, it just doesn’t make sense. And slavery became such a conundrum for half the nation that we wound up having to go to war to enforce the fact that slavery is a racist, immoral practice that should have no place in what was supposed to be an advanced society.

The successful Flapper Era also had the Tulsa and Rosewood massacres, which decimated Black American territory to nothingness. The Eisenhower Era coincides with the Jim Crow Era and the fights for equality. Then under Reagan when the economy was bouncing back, Black American neighborhoods were secretly being pumped addicting drugs which led to the destruction of many areas throughout the country as well as pandemics that were ignored---AIDS being the big one. Clinton and the Seinfeldesque 1990s had a lot of prosperity, improvements, and an overall peaceful period----but Black America was struggling with police brutality, immigrants first started receiving the modern blunt end of blind justice, and of course the LGBTQ community was still having to battle for their equal rights. It was slow, methodical, but there was progress. But this country was growing, not necessarily great---yet.

It is okay to admit your sins of the past and appeal to do better. Germany in a span of 100 years went from becoming the brutal enemy of the entire world to being split in half and owned by other nations to being put back together and emerging as a major progressive economic powerhouse in the European Union. Italy in a span of 100 years went from royalty choosing a fascist dictator to losing everything in a brutal war to re-emerging as a monarch-less republic and top culinary and tourist destination—well before the pandemic. Its wild that the country that has progressed the least from World War 2’s atrocities (besides Russia, even though it can still be debated) is the United States. Even Japan, the size of California, is a Top 10 economy in the world, and it’s the only country to endure TWO nuclear bombs.

The United States however was founded on this manifest destiny mindset where they believe that your failures and the failures of your families are due to your inability to rise above the ashes of oppression, and this mindset ignores the centuries of crimes and atrocities committed towards Mexicans who saw their land decrease in half during the 1800s thanks to American warfare and interventions, the Africans forced to come here by boats, and the Native Americans who saw their peaceful existence being wiped out to the pure minimum. On the other side of that coin, the Germans banned all types of Nazi memorabilia and discussion and symbolism, free speech rights be damned. And to this day, there are more Nazis and Nazi-sympathizers in the United States than in Germany, how about that for a historical plot twist?

Donald Trump is a personification of this manifest destiny ingrained in the minds of a majority of Americans in the Rust Belt, Midwest, Tornado Alley, Great Plains, and other territories very much separated from the rapidly-changing demographics of the country—a man that made it, is draped in gold, and is a reflection of what they COULD be with work. Why would Republicans be mad at the personification of their core values of God, Money, Success, Prosperity, and being above the rules angering and offending Americans? Why would a majority of Americans not acknowledge the problems current and historically if we see success stories like a Donald Trump and his family, embedded in all kinds of projects all over the world?

From pop culture (even Disney is guilty) to even the history books, the history of the United States has been edited, fragmented, whitewashed, disguised to look like it simply had growing pains on its pathway to the top tier of all countries, which makes it much more difficult for current Americans to actually confront said history, confront the issues it had created, the conflicts with intense consequences, and the injustices today. This is why its impossible to discuss Black Lives Matter with a good population of the country, because they’ve been raised to assume that the country is now equal and there is no residue of the Civil War and the Jim Crow Era, and it leads to the racist backlash we’ve seen throughout this administration. We even have history books in rural areas call the African slaves “immigrants” and simply “workers,” watering-down the severity of the Founding Fathers’ actions. It was assumed that we had turned a corner when Obama was put into office, but clearly all it did was make the racists and American mythologists extremely bitter and angry. Trump even today is eliminating racial sensitivity training sessions for federal contractors. Trump wants to spread his method of happiness: extreme ignorance is bliss.

We have mainly two types of citizens: Americans that see the country as a constantly evolving process towards its goal of obtaining equality and pathways towards success for all, and Americans that love the myths of America, the personality of America, the image of America, and will quite frankly go into chaos when its being challenged because in their eyes, we don’t need much fixing. Black Lives Matter is revealing a blemish in a country that Americans deem as perfect. Racial inequality, social inequality, the power of the top 3%, extreme capitalism, oligopolies, and environmental setbacks are all problems that don’t get recognized as much as they should because to fix these irregularities means making changes that a part of the country just isn’t willing to accept.

We’ve all heard it:

Make America Great Again.

Keep America Great.

America First.

America is the Greatest Country in the World.

America Doesn’t Need Changing.

All Lives Matter.

Never Forget.

Don’t Burn the Flag.

Don’t Kneel during the Anthem.

Slavery Was So Long Ago.

Pick Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps.

These are ALL phrases used and attributed to battle movements and protests and pleas for changes and attempts to move closer towards actual equality. Until we learn our history properly, until we accept and embrace collectively that there’s still so much work to be done (and after this administration, even MORE work), we’re going to be a nation with competing mindsets about the past, present, and future of the United States. Even Jared Kushner today said that Black Americans have to “want to be successful” as a way to justify Trump’s inactions to help Black America, especially during these turbulent times. This is complete ignorance of WHY the country is in the position its in, its completely ignoring the fact that the United States still isn’t quite over the events of the Civil War.

Don’t just discuss the Tea Party and the American Revolution, discuss the Native Americans and slavery sins. Discuss the Trail of Tears, discuss all the massacres committed, especially at the hands of some of the notorious historical figures we revere like Andrew Jackson.

Don’t just discuss manifest destiny and the wild wild west, discuss why we went on a Civil War (SLAAAAAAAAVVERY, and I literally had to learn this after my high school and college days which had books that told the history differently) and discuss what we did to Mexico. And then, discuss how the French was ready to join the Confederates, but Mexico was having none of that, even hiding runaway slaves from the Confederates at the time. If we learned just how much Mexico has helped the United States, maybe today’s attitudes towards our Southern neighbors wouldn’t remain so damn unnecessarily hostile.

Don’t just discuss the Great Depression, discuss how the Great Depression started early for Black Americans nationwide thanks to Jim Crow, the KKK, and the dismantling of Black progress through domestic terrorism.

Don’t just discuss Martin Luther King Jr. and the END of the Civil Rights Movement, discuss everything that actually led up to it, discuss the riots that emerged after MLK’s assassination, discuss the scores of Black lives lost while trying to earn the right to be in this country, discuss how Muhammad Ali sacrificed his best years of his boxing career because he was a target to White Americans making an example out of him. Discuss the victories and enhancements, but don’t forget to include the missteps that still resonate today.

Admitting the sins will not make us weaker, much like how when Obama toured countries devastated by American intervention like Japan, like Cuba, did not make us look weak, no matter what the other side tells you. Confession and acceptance is a sign of strength, and this is a source of power the United States has not achieved enough. We don’t lose any footing simply federally and majorly acknowledging the disconnect and the economical and social separations between Black Americans and White Americans---as well as Native Americans and Latin Americans.  

Discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of the United States---and then and only then can we collectively provide the conversations necessary to find solutions to resolve the biggest problems affecting America. And it starts with having a president that is actually willing to admit his own political sins of the past, with Joe Biden admitting his faults and his efforts to un-do the damage.

We have to kill the myth of America, because that myth disguises the tragedies.

Epilogue: The Case for Joe Biden, and Why He’s Likely Going to Win

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I am going to do two things here:

Discuss why you have to vote for Joe Biden.

And

Why barring an epic mistake or a completely wild curveball, Joe Biden is more than likely going to win this election. You should definitely vote, but odds are he’s going to win, and the key is ultimately to win by a landslide to prevent supreme court shenanigans involving recounts.

Joe Biden is no Donald Trump, and that’s all you need to know. So simple.

Donald Trump is the cruelest president since Nixon, and the worst president since the racist Andrew Johnson that took over for Abraham Lincoln after the assassination and started undoing all the hard work to try to help Black Americans assimilate into American culture, politics, and life in general. But I’m not here to constantly bash on Trump, despite how easy that is, I’m here to prove to you that voting for Biden is not going to result in a disaster; even if it may not create as much progress and change that this country oh so desperately needs.

Joe Biden has been in politics for generations, has professional relationships with Democrats, Independents, Republicans, and essentially most of the White House. His eight years with Obama was a successful turnaround of an economy that had crashed and burned, and even though the Republicans were hostile towards Obama, Biden’s ability to reach across and get deals done was notably impressive considering the extreme efforts to ensure Obama survives only one term (didn’t work, but boy was there a lot of damage).

Even though he is not as progressive as the Bernie Bros. and the Squad Stans would like, Biden doesn’t have the ignorance or the hard-headed, hot-headed, childish mannerisms of Trump; in other words he’s willing to learn, grow, evolve even during these late years. Joe Biden was supplemental in making gay marriage legal across the country, he took on corruption on foreign soil (*insert Hunter Biden snark here, but as a reminder the Republicans had the House and didn’t see any problems until years later when a thrashing Trump wanted to discredit the presidential run of Biden*), he was the proper partner to Barack Obama without becoming too much of a panderer or a yes man (*looks at Mike Pence*).

Biden has suffered through insurmountable personal tragedies, which along with his Catholic faith gives him an ability to be sympathetic towards the tragedies we are seeing today; a sympathy we desperately need nowadays but have not been getting from the Trump Administration. We’ve had hundreds of bills lined up at the Senate, yet they are on vacation AGAIN without passing an essential covid relief bill.

There’s also Biden’s professional setbacks, from an embarrassing presidential campaign in 1988 to him having a politician’s worst nightmare niche: a stuttering issue that limits his speech, which shows the man is not a quitter even after the worst losses (in contrast, Trump Administration essentially surrendered to the pandemic). Joe Biden is smarter than he sounds, and it’s because the speech impediment and advanced age makes his appearance more suspect than it has to be. What also doesn’t help is his old-school ways which results in verbal deliveries that come off as dated, sometimes bland, and sometimes too separated from the current American lexicon (malarkey is a word nobody uses). But at least he doesn’t embrace and share conspiracy theories (*looks at Trump’s Twitter account*).

Side-Note: Imagine a 2021 in which you wake up every morning and NOT have to worry about what the president is tweeting and which world leader he decided to randomly insult.

But Joe Biden isn’t in this race for personal gain, he’s not here to try to strike up a favor, or to re-write history. Biden is current on the national stage because he personally felt that the United States is losing its way, and he claims it all started with Charlottesville. What’s incredible is that the murder of the protestor in the midst of white supremacists chanting anti-Semitic statements was the tip of the shit iceberg of the Trump Administration. When Charlottesville happened, we hadn’t even reached Puerto Rico mistreatment, assassinations, cages stuffed with unregistered migrants and refugees, refusal to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement, and all the hatred that would culminate to a pandemic that wasn’t avoidable but was largely possible to contain within months under right leadership.

The stack of atrocities, corruption, and stupidity (guys, Trump wanted to SELL PUERTO RICO and BUY GREENLAND and threw temper tantrums when he couldn’t get either shitty thing done) was piling up in Biden’s mind, and even though he’s probably still reeling from the death of one of his sons, he couldn’t take it much longer. It feels like an eternity ago, but Biden was among the LAST of the Democrats to decide to run for president, instantly becoming the favorite. Biden saw an America that was crumbling, so even if you don’t fully agree with his policies, at the very least among the last two major candidates standing, he’s the one that sees that we need to stop the backwards progress and stop all the chaos that has been brewing. The Trump Administration stopped having a plan for the coronavirus months ago, and as of this writing cases are almost at July levels and a vaccine is nowhere in sight (…as expected…).

Biden cares about this country, and even picked a strong running mate to challenge him and potentially take over in case the pressures of being president becomes too much. If you think about it, Kamala Harris is one of the strongest potential vice presidents we’ve had this century if not the strongest. So Joe got a strong partner to keep him in check, he’s open to changes, he’s willing to work with the other party (and rumor has it considered Republican politicians for his cabinet), he has plans for the coronavirus and beyond, Biden has publicly admitted his political faults and commitments to fix them (Crime Bill, Deportations from 2008-2016), he firmly has the support of nearly the entire party nationwide (which let’s be honest, didn’t happen in 2016 after the way things transpired in the primaries), and most importantly (to me anyway), he has the support from the progressives who are providing the major transformative ideas that can indeed fix the problems created by the last several administrations, starting with Reagan.

Also most importantly, he’s not Trump. Duh.

Now here’s why Joe Biden is likely to win, even though this should not be a notice to take things easy and not participate in the election: because he didn’t fumble the campaign like Hillary Clinton and her team.

The 2016 Election in general was a disaster of epic proportions. Hillary Clinton’s nomination was controversial among the Bernie Bros. crowd, especially with the leaks concerning how Bernie disrupted what was supposed to be an easy sail to the end of the primary, which led to a smaller overall turnout than what the stakes were implying. Donald Trump was not taken seriously until it was too late, and through his rock star persona mixed with dog whistles and a more unconventional personality gave him a surprise-surprise nomination win. Jeb Bush, this election was yours man, this was yours. Also, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were far stronger candidates but performed miserably as they let Trump insult and meme them to death. Surprised Ted Cruz is still married…

On November 2016, Hillary Clinton had more votes, way more votes, but lost key states in this severely broken electoral college system, losing states that had previously been won easily by Barack Obama. Gary Johnson had the highest third-party turnout of any candidate since 1996, with 4.5% of the vote. Even the Green Party showed up with 1.5 million votes. Bernie Sanders wasn’t even running and ended up with electoral votes and 111,000 write-in votes. Harambe (NEVER FORGET) ended up with votes. Voter turnout increased but was only at 56%, still a bit off from 2008 when Obama had nearly 70 million votes in the midst of 58% voter turnout. Third-party voters really hurt Hillary hard, as they whether went with Stein/Johnson, put Bernie in, or went with Trump.

Because of the polls, the way the media was shaping up the battle between Trump and Clinton, and because of the completely polarizing campaigns of Bernie first then Trump, it was greatly assumed that Clinton was going to win. She should have won. She should have had this in the bag. But she didn’t visit Wisconsin, didn’t focus as much on the Midwest region, and it ended up shockingly costing her Wisconsin as well as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio. Also there’s the issues of sexism, racism, and that last-week ridiculous report about her e-mails being investigated that really made her even more polarizing than the usual subtle disconnect seen throughout her campaign. Her debate performances weren’t the strongest either, as she spent most of the time having to deflect and not quite figuring out how to confront the bully while making her points.

Joe Biden’s team in 2020, as well as the circumstances, are much stronger in the Democrats’ favor this time around. Even though there were more Dems competing for the nomination and Biden struggled at first, ultimately his light-gamble focus on South Carolina and Super Tuesday as opposed to the first three states paid off magnificently, and after that infamous S.C. landslide win all the other strong nominees except for Bernie Sanders folded and joined his side. Bernie, unlike in 2016, conceded a lot sooner because of the pandemic and because he could not regain footing after Super Tuesday’s wipeout losses. Also, Bernie was more willing to drop out in favor of ensuring that Trump doesn’t gain any advantage. Bernie had a far far stronger message towards his disappointed (yet again) supporters in 2020, helping Biden in the process. Also, the concept of the Democrats having full power of the White House has the progressives salivating.

Biden’s focus on middle class Americans did amazing wonders, as he was able to shake off the Wall Streetisms that was hurting Hillary Clinton, even shifting suburban and rural women from Trump to his side. He’s been consistent in his message, has been vital in revealing his coronavirus plans and plans beyond the pandemic, has remained mostly scot-free from scandals that were not invented by nervous Republicans (as a reminder, Hunter Biden is a disconnected non-story that also is hypocritical to point out considering the Trump family parading all over the White House today). To also point out, the Democratic Party in general has a more structured message in 2020 when compared to their awkward victory lap in 2016, with headliners Michelle and Barack Obama publicly ripping Trump through the coals now that they don’t have the White House restrictions, and The Squad making intense gains among the minority groups that Dems over the past few elections have neglected. And, it bears repeating, it helps that Joe Biden is not a woman. Yea, sexism definitely harmed Clinton.

Like him or not, Joe Biden’s debate performances were also much stronger than Hillary’s showdowns four years ago. The first debate was a shitshow beyond shitshows, but we all know that it was a mix of the moderator struggling to contain Trump’s strategies to try to trip up Biden on EVERY POSSIBLE GIVEN CHANCE. Biden wasn’t prepared to see Trump at his worst behavior, and mix that with his stutters, and he had to battle the tide to merely survive. But survive he did, and he came out mostly unscathed, with his worst sins being tongue-tied and forgetful in the midst of the screaming. The second debate was cancelled and turned into a competitive town hall, and not only did Biden have stronger ratings, but he also came out of that with minimal blemishes, while Trump didn’t have the layup of an event he expected with some tough questions.

Side-Note: For someone who has survived on personal image, its strange that Donald Trump hasn’t figured out how to soften his touch in the election season towards the media, as he had burned too many bridges to receive the 2016 election treatment. Between the NBC town hall fiasco and the 60 Minutes mess, this is quite the strange misstep of a business public relations connoisseur. 

Joe Biden has also avoided attacking Trump’s voting block, focusing more on Trump himself. Biden doesn’t have a Basket of Deplorables controversy, he doesn’t have the furious pushback from insulted Republican voters (let’s be honest, this time the remaining Trump voters love Trump more than they despise Biden) and instead has even made a little bit of gain with normally-Red voters. He’s gotten verbal support from Republicans like John Kasich, Cindy McCain, Colin Powell, while getting financial support from Republican groups like The Lincoln Project. Biden even reclaimed the third-party vote that Obama easily possessed and Hillary perplexedly lost. Biden has maintained a 10+ percentage lead, with only the Electoral College being the one obstacle since he’s pretty much guaranteed to win the popular vote. As a reminder, the Electoral College should die.

Biden, after a few stumbles in the primaries, has pretty much made all the right moves, and also stayed away from the spotlight when necessary, putting more spotlight on a Donald Trump that has horrifically mishandled the pandemic and its led to the death of over 220,000 Americans and rising, as well as the underemployment rates going up, poverty rates rising, cases STILL rising, and homelessness rates also threatening to explode. New York City, the heart and soul of the country, has seen its population drop a whopping 5%. Republican or Democrat, you cannot see that stat and conclude that the United States is better off now than it was four years ago. So what next?

70 million.

If the Democrats, angry Republicans distancing themselves from the kult, and underrated independent voter block can reach the 70 million vote threshold for Biden, a number that Obama nearly reached back in 2008, then the win is guaranteed. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Arizona would flip, and he would also gain those scattered individual electoral votes that on 2016 were given to *checks paperwork* Bernie Sanders, John Kasich, and…Spotted Eagle?

Even Florida and Texas would be on the block to flip blue for Biden, as long as the turnout remains as high as its been since early voting and mail-in voting started. If the constantly-undercounted and underrated minority groups rise up and vote in all the usually-red states, then we’re going to see a lot of flipping. Biden definitely has the lead nationally and will likely pass Hillary Clinton’s vote totals, but he needs to go further and reach 2008 Obama numbers.

Donald Trump on the other hand is unlikely going to pass his 62.9 million, as he’s burned a lot of bridges and ultimately all those broken promises and inactions will turn around and hurt you. Trump will probably flirt between 59-60 million, mostly coming from your rural states of course. But losing by over 7 million votes would make it literally impossible to dispute for an upset victory. And the prospect of Joe Biden winning by 9-10 million? That might even result in Donald Trump just quitting and giving Mike Pence the last month of the term. But before you write your Handmaid’s Tale drafts, that likely will result in very little before Biden and the Dems take over. I don’t see the gap being THAT big, but that would definitely be a fun scenario to witness.

Joe Biden’s one last remaining hope (besides Trump giving up and running away) is for the registered voters to show up at the polls early and in continuing record numbers, and ensure that Biden keeps that giant lead through mail-in and early voting before Election Day. Zero chance Donald Trump could try any 2000 Election-esque shenanigans in stopping any sort of progress if Biden has a giant blue spot all over the map. Biden has the strength, the support, the momentum, and none of the sudden last-minute uncertainty that had surrounded Hillary Clinton. The electoral PROCESS has uncertainty, but not necessarily the candidate between the horseshit Electoral College and the dozens of court battles happening right now concerning the counting of said ballots. Barring Trump threatening the process outright, this election is just about in the bag. Of course, with 2020 providing so many twists, turns, and dirty surprises, the majority of Americans have remained extremely worried, stressed, and nervous, so it makes sense to not take the foot off the pedal.

My suggestion is for Biden to campaign heavy in Texas, then ensure that he ends the rallying in the upper Midwest and Chicagoland area and ensure that any and all remaining undecideds visualize a future without Trump and instead with a president who will probably never be on his Twitter. With a slight twitch of uncertainty, this election is Joe Biden’s to lose.

But yea, please go out and vote. Because the future of the United States, without exaggeration, does indeed depend on it. 2020 will decide if the United States is perfectly fine sinking like a ship in the name of its outdated beliefs, or its finally accepting that there have been some serious mistakes, and they are rolling back the clock to Obama politics to stop the bleeding----again.

Please vote. And I’ll see you on the other side.

Maybe.