A Bitter Pill to Swallow

A Bitter Pill

I know it's a bitter pill to swallow when someone says something like I have. I know people don't agree that they are choosing money over lives. And people get extremely defensive about things that relate to their decisions and how they feel. I'm a counselor, I'm well aware of that. But as a counselor, I believe in living in the here and now, and objective, nonjudgmental examination of the facts.

The fact is if you worry more about your profit than you worry about the state of the country, that's a problem. If your royalties mean more to you than making a stand against a company that is literally trying to dismantle our entire system of living, that's also a problem.

I think a lot of this is rooted in the fact that a lot of people thing this stuff will never happen. But it does. And it is. There were a lot of us (myself included) that tried to tell people that this Project 2025 stuff was dangerous, and people needed to be talking about it, and people needed to know what it meant. You know what I got? People told me I was "fear-mongering" and "that'll never happen" and "there's no way Rump will do that." Even though things were clearly outlined online, and even on Rump's website that these were his intention.

I read those things, and it made me sick, but what made me sicker was the fact others would dismiss it as not a concern. I was very concerned about these things. I knew that they were more than possible and dismissing them was a huge mistake. But people didn't listen to me and others. We got told to shut up and sit down. As if we weren't aware of the possibilities.

Executive Orders and this Administration

When Rump got into office, he immediately started whipping out Executive Orders, whether they were constitutional or not. The aim? Confuse the masses and blitz the world with his "authority" and show that he was going to make up for lost time. He was literally punishing the country for voting in Biden and he wanted, with his billionaire backers, to turn this country into a business model that the focus was on funding those billionaires rather than taking care of the citizens. His playbook? Authoritarian and Fascists leaders. He was and is literally using strategies from Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and several others. The comparison to Hitler is apt, but it is not the only one we can make. He wants complete control, proven by the slew of attempts at Executive Orders and to remove power from congress and the courts. He wants no checks and balances, and he wants nothing to do with fairness.

Most people think he's stupid. Maybe he is. But in some ways, he's smart. Cunning and insidiously evil. Just like all the things you can cross off Project 2025, he's enacted changes that the effects are going to ripple for a hundred years.

Writers in this Situation

And us writers, bloggers, and journalists? We're directly in the line of fire whether you want to admit it or not. An ignorant population is the easiest to manipulate. When we talk about the attacks on women, we are talking about the fact there aren't enough uneducated white people to fill factories, because according to this white supremacist theology, an uneducated white person is worth more than any black or BIPOC person. Any divergent way of thinking that doesn't align with the majority is considered deviant, so queer, neurodivergent, alternative lifestyle, pagan/non-Christian, and anyone who doesn't fit their narrow definition of "normal and good" is going to be eliminated. Because those groups have a tendency to think for themselves. And us writers? We talk about these things. And that, to this administration is unacceptable.

It's all about censorship and propaganda. If you don't speak the company line, you're criminalized. That means as writers, if we don't write about good Christian people sitting five feet apart confessing their love in the name of God, we're going to be targeted. Open door romance is already being criminalized in some states. Queer works are being classified as obscene even if they don't include open door sex scenes.

The Attack on Transgender People

And transgender/non-binary people? They're an easy target, so if we write them, we're definitely in the line of fire, front of the line. Transgender people are a small percentage of the population. In fact, .5% of the population is estimated to be transgender. So, out of a thousand people, fifty will be transgender. The number is higher among youth, but still under 2%. So why is the administration so concerned with this "problem" and this "epidemic" that doesn't exist? The reason is simple. They're an easy target to convince the majority to gang up on. It always begins with the easiest population to sway others to speak out against. And the people easiest to convince? Uneducated white people.

No Protests?

People ask if things are so bad, why aren't people in the streets? Well, ask yourself who has led the charge for a hundred years for civil rights? Who has stepped up and thrown bricks? The answer is black people. And you know who benefited the least from the initiatives like DEI? Black people. So, why should they stand up for systems and programs that still allowed for their oppression and discrimination? (Note: This information comes directly from a black author, https://medium.com/the-bad-influence/why-arent-black-people-protesting-f2f5e4b6a81f if you want to read the article. Highly recommend listing to black voices right now.)

So, why aren't white people leading the charge? These issues disproportionally affect us. Where are the queer people risking everything like black people have done in the past? Where are these people?

We're busy arguing with each other. Divisions within these groups is making it impossible to organize. And what that means is that it is going to be impossible to stop these issues. Writers who are under fire aren't doing the minimum by talking on social media. We can't even boycott ONE company for ONE week. We can't even share posts about what's going on, and it's extremely telling. Half the authors on my list are crying out to agree to disagree. The other half are "staying out of politics" and I tell you what, that time has passed. We can't afford to do that otherwise our ENTIRE livelihood is going to be destroyed, and we're going to be censored if we dare say anything that goes against the propaganda machine. So, even fantasy authors, science fiction, they're going to suffer because they write on societal issues. And I've already mentioned the move to make queer stuff obscene and under obscenity laws. Write something about someone that's not white, Christian, pure, chaste, monogamous, cisgender and heterosexual? Banned. Possibly jailed or thrown in camps.

Speaking of camps, the whole idea that "wellness camps" (a bullshit word for work camps) are being talked about is disturbing. The fact they are calling the use of mental health medications an "epidemic" is scary as hell. Take away these medications, and we're going to end up with mental hospitals full of people who we're trying to help that are actively psychotic, some to a dangerous degree, and suicide rates will skyrocket.

The Summation

So, you know, if you spend your days in blissful ignorance, I don't know what to say. We can no longer be happily believing that there are no problems and things are going to continue as they always have. Writers are at the forefront because they always come for us after they come for the queer people, and possibly other minorities. We are not safe. And we need to realize that.