As an abandoned Afghan ally this question touches something very deep in me what does it mean when a government stops seeing the human beings behind its promises?
I stood with America as an ally. I believed the promises. I believed that those who worked with America and stood beside Americans would not simply be forgotten when the situation became difficult. There were many promises, many words about partnership, safety, and a future. But today, I am still one of those left behind.
to the current U.S. government I want to ask respectfully how can you speak about democracy human dignity and protecting people from cruelty while so many Afghan allies who trusted your promises are still living with fear and uncertainty? We were not just names on documents or numbers in reports. We were human beings. We had families hopes and dreams for a safer life.
This is why your words about real humans in public office mean so much to me. Leadership is not only about power. It is about remembering the people who trusted you when keeping a promise becomes difficult.
I do not ask anyone to feel sorry for me. I ask the current U.S. government to remember us. Please remember the Afghan allies who stood beside America and now feel abandoned by the very government whose promises gave us hope.
Sometimes the deepest pain is not being defeated. It is being forgotten after you believed someone would never leave you behind.
The Scientist that trains shrinks and renews their license tells them:"When you look at your scores on the empathy scale, you will probably see that you.received a failing grade, especially if you're using the rating scale for the first time. This can be a blow to your ego, especially if you (wrongly) believed that you had good empathy skills."
*Moms and therapists and teachers were asked how their children feel and they were only 0% to 9% accurate.
We should be able to protect allies. Where are the veterans who argued so hard to save these interpreters from certain death in Afghanistan? They were vocal at the time.
I am embarrassed the US gov is and has always been an unreliable ally. It has also made promises to its own people that are immediately forgotten or withdrawn whenever financial expediency of the few so dictates. You are certainly subjected to extremely high risks compared to the ordinary person living in the US, but the song of betrayal is the same for everyone who has relied upon the US for protection, support, and partnership. It is tragic from every angle. I am so sorry that you, too, were swept up in its empty promises. ❤️🩹
A beautiful focus to start my day, human, caring, men, role models. Then there’s Brett Morrise, a fixer-upper who never charges me, his 85 year old neighbor.
I’m excited that I will be taking a course the end of this month to learn how to be a Poll Chaplain. Just to hold positive energy and compassion during the voting process. No campaigning or bashing just being a positive presence💞
I really believe that we don’t have people with character in office because of the power of dark money to put placeholders in positions of power. These placeholders are there to support and defend those who have paid for their seats and whose influence will then be assured and their voices heard in the form of legislation or opposition to their needs, wants and desires.
Politics these days has little to do with solving problems for constituents and everything to do with convincing constituents of the wisdom of finger-pointing, which is much easier than actually thinking through issues and providing creative and thoughtful solutions to our problems. These people do not want to resolve problems. They seem to want to create problems that did not exist in the form of culture wars and other ‘blame games’.
MAGA is tailor-made for this strategy and purpose. What may have begun as a legitimate concern about borders and budgets has been warped by prejudice and sucked into a black hole of racism and bigotry, to the great despair of those who have become its victims and to those of us witnessing this exploitation of others for political purposes.
Tim Walz, and others like him, are the brightest of bright lights. They remind us of who we really are…whole, imperfect, and well-meaning human beings who see the value of community and connection and seek to promote this by living their values. We need more of this. We can have more of this. We just have to remember who we are. If we can’t remember who we were because of who we’ve become, we need to reach back to remember a time when we were not afraid of each other. We need to aspire to the greatest of all human traits…the ability to love each other…to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is my prayer for the future of us and I am going to start with myself. “Yes, we can” becomes “Yes, I can.” I can try, can’t I?
Agree! Big money in our elections has corrupted our democratic process. That needs to change in order for people who truly want to serve the country to get elected but are not necessarily backed by billionaires
Exceptionally well said, Ellen. I agree completely on almost all points. I just won't make any effort to love devout MAGAs. That's going too far for me.
I totally understand, Denise. I cannot love what they are doing to this country…but what they do not see is what they are doing to themselves in the process. I do not ‘love’ them in the literal sense. I ‘love’ them as fellow human beings. Thank you for your kind words!
I agree that they don't see what they're doing to themselves; people who join cults don't tend to be introspective. But the more critical point is that they don't care what they're doing to others. In fact, they revel in inflicting pain on non-MAGAs and the "other." I simply won't forgive that.
Also, I wonder whether, if they did realize their own self-inflicted social and economic pain, the cultists would feel it was worth it as long as their targets suffered.
I remember waiting in a line for a selfie with Liz Warren. There was a small child in front of me and when her turn came Warren squatted down (no creaking bones!) to meet her at eye level and engage naturally and honestly with her. Then she bounced back up to do the same with me.
From my perspective many of us, too many of us, are influenced by external forces while lacking internal personality and character traits.
For example, there is no question the outsized influence of Citizens United. This abominable distortion of what constitutes free speech and expression literally buys elections. Politicians need two things to gain elected office: Money and votes. With Citizens United they can get all the money they need to influence the vote. Then, when the electorate votes them in thinking this candidate will represent their interests, the candidate executes a 180°, forgets his promises to his voters, and represents the big money that delivered his win.
A too large segment of the electorate seems utterly ignorant of this. To their discredit, they lack discernment. They don't "do their own research." They simply believe the lies that are fed to them. Why? It has been suggested that those lies align with their own distorted perspectives. To that end, they are largely uneducated and/or ignorant of our history and how our governments actually function. In this way they become very passionate about their support of these indecent human beings.
My father often said, "In a discussion between reason and emotion, emotion will win every time." So it seems for our electorate.
I came over to bring up the Citizens United decision. It didn't come out of nowhere -- voter suppression in all its many forms is even more American than apple pie, and it gets fiercer as the electorate expands. All one needs is a calendar to see how closely both Citizens United and the Tea Party election (both 2010) followed the election of our first Black president.
It's easy to forget that Citizens United was a 5-4 decision. It was close -- all 5 members of the majority were Republican appointees, surprise, surprise -- and it was decided well before Mitch McConnell blocked Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland. It paved the way for Trump's election in 2016, and thus made it possible for Trump (or his Federalist Society advisers) to appoint Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.
You touch on several good points. Your father’s point is well taken. It is a well established truth that humans believe they make decisions rationally and logically while the facts show involvement of emotion. This is especially true in the presence of stress, fear and/or anger.
However money is losing when candidates enter the field by campaigning “on the ground” face to face with voters. Large swaths of the country were abandoned & forgotten election after election. One big tell: no alternative candidates on the ballot.
As for doing their “own research”, there are 2 large obstacles. A. 54% of US adults read below a 6th grade level. This has many social and political consequences. B. Algorithms and micro-targeting distort results for all of us doing our “own research”.
(As a person with some background in various aspects of social studies, I dare say ignorance of how our governments actually function and history crosses a lot of political boundaries.)
I have found another roadblock to "doing your own research." The time it takes to do it and the length of the resulting report. It's not easy if you're attempting to get the facts.
Many of my own Facebook friends complain that my posts that generally cover Trump, MAGA, and the metastasizing trend we are seeing that is taking us straight to a dystopian autocracy are too long for them to read. They tell me they have better things to do and/or their lives to live. My response is that we are a technologically advanced, sophisticated society where simple answers are far and few between. That IF one is interested in the truth in an environment that has fire hose volume levels of misinformation THEN you have to be prepared for lengthy results. That lengthy articles and explanations are a factor of our historical moment.
That all makes sense. But we have to consider how people receive and store information. Why are Social Security Numbers hyphenated? Phone numbers divided by ( ) and hyphenated? It’s called ‘chunking’. The numbers are easier to remember by making them smaller digestible pieces & creating recognizable patterns. They are also limited in length. Your short term memory holds them so with repetition your long term memory can file them away. Think of it as our brains having RAM (short term memory) and a hard drive (long term memory).
Numbers aren’t words, but the same principle applies to searching for & explaining new &/or complex ideas - especially when literacy is an issue. The vocabulary is often unfamiliar - an obstacle to searches which require specific language. Unfamiliar language and ideas take longer to process and understand because the pieces are not stored in the “hard drive.”
Our “RAM” memory only holds a few things for maybe 20 seconds. About long enough to hold the beginning of a sentence until the end of the sentence. But only if the reader is not struggling to understand the words. Information dense articles or reports often stack multiple new (to the audience) ideas, facts and conclusions on top of one another. If taken in at one time, the sequence moves faster than the reader is processing & storing. This is not changed by our expectations or their need to know. We need to change how it is presented so the ‘chunks’ are digestable.
I know this wasn't the point of your reply, but a few words about why SSNs are hyphenated.
The first three digits indicate where the number was issued. The most important is the first digit, with 0 indicating New England, 1 meaning Mid-Atlantic, and increasing as you go west. I got my SSN in New Jersey, and it starts with 1, while my wife's (Illinois) starts with 3.
The middle two digits have to do with the year it was issued. My siblings got their SSNs two years after mine was issued, and their middle digits are two greater than mine.
The last four are just a sequence number. 0001 followed by 0002, all the way to 9999. My sibs' SSNs are identical except for the very last digit.
Late in the evening 01/06/21 and early morning 01/07 Senator Andy Kim was observed cleaning trash and debris from the Capitol rotunda. After going through so much, he took energy to provide some healing.
The thing I worry about is that a full third of humans seem to be sociopaths, or worse. I never considered this until the felon was elected a second time. Now this keeps me up at night, and has caused me to step away from some relationships.
I've said this before: my parents always told me to beware of people who didn't like animals and who didn't have a sense of humor. How right they were.
The "permanent" (until 11-3) 4x6' plywood sign in my truck bed reads, "Massive turnout defeats voter suppression. VOTE. Early and in person". So far at least, we still have a voice, and a say in who represents us, if we choose to exercise it.
And no, I can't picture trump playing with a dog. Any self respecting dog would pee on his leg at first sight.
I read a post yesterday on BlueSky. A man born in the UK, now resides in CA, that has worked for 17 years to open a Village for foster children. The purpose was to keep siblings tougher when placed in foster care. That man, Christian Bale, an actor, using his platform, and obviously his influence and wealth who saw an urgent need and saw that need to fruition.
And, remember Dolly and all the 'good' works she did in life without asking for accolades. It is possible to have a caring Nation, just open your eyes and try.
Because the billionaires have bought and paid for every single Republican officeholder and most of the Democratic ones as well. Humans are not welcome in office, just the oligarchs’ lackeys need apply. Citizens United and our corrupt and disgusting Supreme Court turned our country over to Elon Musk and his type. And here we are……
I've paid close attention to Iowa's governor campaign and as a lifetime Iowan have been disappointed with the past decade of heartless, mean spirited legislation emanating from our elected leaders. There was a time when it seemed "Iowa Nice" was a true picture of virtually everything that had Iowa attached to it.
Even our lifetime Senator, Chuck Grassley, beamed that "aw shucks" attitude that somehow was stolen away, replaced by name calling and school yard bullying.
But back to the governor race. Baby-faced Rob Sand (he admits he looks too young for his age) is leading the charge of bringing "Iowa Nice" back to our state. Born and bred in Decorah, Sand shares his life as an Iowa kid, skateboarding around town, loving pizza and ice cream and leading the singing of "America" during his unstaged 99 county citizen meetings where he makes certain both sides of the political spectrum have an opportunity to be part of the conversation.
Is he truthful? Reliable? As real as the day is long? Let's hope so. He appears to be genuine in his concerns for us Iowans.
I am so embarrassed by our current government that I would hate to be associated with it. They break promises and long standing agreements. They act like a bunch of thugs, (I think they think this impresses people) and they are truly in government for themselves, not for the American people at large. Running for office costs a fortune and most real people cannot afford that. The system seems rigged against real humans even trying to run. there are so many things that need fixed to make this even possible.
It takes time, effort and money to run for office. After the campaign begins, here comes the influencers with their money and agenda. Few people have the integrity and self confidence to say “no”.
As an abandoned Afghan ally this question touches something very deep in me what does it mean when a government stops seeing the human beings behind its promises?
I stood with America as an ally. I believed the promises. I believed that those who worked with America and stood beside Americans would not simply be forgotten when the situation became difficult. There were many promises, many words about partnership, safety, and a future. But today, I am still one of those left behind.
to the current U.S. government I want to ask respectfully how can you speak about democracy human dignity and protecting people from cruelty while so many Afghan allies who trusted your promises are still living with fear and uncertainty? We were not just names on documents or numbers in reports. We were human beings. We had families hopes and dreams for a safer life.
This is why your words about real humans in public office mean so much to me. Leadership is not only about power. It is about remembering the people who trusted you when keeping a promise becomes difficult.
I do not ask anyone to feel sorry for me. I ask the current U.S. government to remember us. Please remember the Afghan allies who stood beside America and now feel abandoned by the very government whose promises gave us hope.
Sometimes the deepest pain is not being defeated. It is being forgotten after you believed someone would never leave you behind.
Our current immoral leaders make me ashamed and so angry at the way you and your fellow allies have been treated.
🙏
Human suck at empathy.*
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tjPuP0qvMY8f0egssAPfHBID7_A6RFPrHAFHD_RgMwQ/edit?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10sB0fqSY4fbyuRvWeSvif6HXW1gDFXru/view?usp=drivesdk
The Scientist that trains shrinks and renews their license tells them:"When you look at your scores on the empathy scale, you will probably see that you.received a failing grade, especially if you're using the rating scale for the first time. This can be a blow to your ego, especially if you (wrongly) believed that you had good empathy skills."
*Moms and therapists and teachers were asked how their children feel and they were only 0% to 9% accurate.
I so regret we did that. It wasn’t right and needs to be fixed. I’ll look into ways of doing something. We should do this.
We should be able to protect allies. Where are the veterans who argued so hard to save these interpreters from certain death in Afghanistan? They were vocal at the time.
Thank you so much 🙏
I am embarrassed the US gov is and has always been an unreliable ally. It has also made promises to its own people that are immediately forgotten or withdrawn whenever financial expediency of the few so dictates. You are certainly subjected to extremely high risks compared to the ordinary person living in the US, but the song of betrayal is the same for everyone who has relied upon the US for protection, support, and partnership. It is tragic from every angle. I am so sorry that you, too, were swept up in its empty promises. ❤️🩹
I will never vote for someone that I can’t imagine playing with dogs or trying to get kids to eat broccoli. I may put this motto on a T shirt!
Meaningful Sweet and fun.
And true
Broccoli and Frisbees ☺️
…
Obama bending down to let a young child touch his hair.
…
Saying something like, “…see we have the same hair..
💙🇺🇸💙
Hi Elba, how kind your response and your neighbor’s.
I started tearing up just now remembering Obama, this moment and who he was as President. And is now.
I was so proud of him and our country.
A beautiful focus to start my day, human, caring, men, role models. Then there’s Brett Morrise, a fixer-upper who never charges me, his 85 year old neighbor.
Hi Avee, yes we were indeed blessed by Obama’s exemplary character and virtues.
God save America!
I’m excited that I will be taking a course the end of this month to learn how to be a Poll Chaplain. Just to hold positive energy and compassion during the voting process. No campaigning or bashing just being a positive presence💞
I wish we had these where I live.
I really believe that we don’t have people with character in office because of the power of dark money to put placeholders in positions of power. These placeholders are there to support and defend those who have paid for their seats and whose influence will then be assured and their voices heard in the form of legislation or opposition to their needs, wants and desires.
Politics these days has little to do with solving problems for constituents and everything to do with convincing constituents of the wisdom of finger-pointing, which is much easier than actually thinking through issues and providing creative and thoughtful solutions to our problems. These people do not want to resolve problems. They seem to want to create problems that did not exist in the form of culture wars and other ‘blame games’.
MAGA is tailor-made for this strategy and purpose. What may have begun as a legitimate concern about borders and budgets has been warped by prejudice and sucked into a black hole of racism and bigotry, to the great despair of those who have become its victims and to those of us witnessing this exploitation of others for political purposes.
Tim Walz, and others like him, are the brightest of bright lights. They remind us of who we really are…whole, imperfect, and well-meaning human beings who see the value of community and connection and seek to promote this by living their values. We need more of this. We can have more of this. We just have to remember who we are. If we can’t remember who we were because of who we’ve become, we need to reach back to remember a time when we were not afraid of each other. We need to aspire to the greatest of all human traits…the ability to love each other…to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is my prayer for the future of us and I am going to start with myself. “Yes, we can” becomes “Yes, I can.” I can try, can’t I?
Agree! Big money in our elections has corrupted our democratic process. That needs to change in order for people who truly want to serve the country to get elected but are not necessarily backed by billionaires
Your last paragraph says it all/-we are whole, imperfect and well-meaning beings.
Exceptionally well said, Ellen. I agree completely on almost all points. I just won't make any effort to love devout MAGAs. That's going too far for me.
I totally understand, Denise. I cannot love what they are doing to this country…but what they do not see is what they are doing to themselves in the process. I do not ‘love’ them in the literal sense. I ‘love’ them as fellow human beings. Thank you for your kind words!
You're most welcome!
I agree that they don't see what they're doing to themselves; people who join cults don't tend to be introspective. But the more critical point is that they don't care what they're doing to others. In fact, they revel in inflicting pain on non-MAGAs and the "other." I simply won't forgive that.
Also, I wonder whether, if they did realize their own self-inflicted social and economic pain, the cultists would feel it was worth it as long as their targets suffered.
I remember waiting in a line for a selfie with Liz Warren. There was a small child in front of me and when her turn came Warren squatted down (no creaking bones!) to meet her at eye level and engage naturally and honestly with her. Then she bounced back up to do the same with me.
That's what you're supposed to do as a basic human being.
"Why aren't more real humans elected to office?"
From my perspective many of us, too many of us, are influenced by external forces while lacking internal personality and character traits.
For example, there is no question the outsized influence of Citizens United. This abominable distortion of what constitutes free speech and expression literally buys elections. Politicians need two things to gain elected office: Money and votes. With Citizens United they can get all the money they need to influence the vote. Then, when the electorate votes them in thinking this candidate will represent their interests, the candidate executes a 180°, forgets his promises to his voters, and represents the big money that delivered his win.
A too large segment of the electorate seems utterly ignorant of this. To their discredit, they lack discernment. They don't "do their own research." They simply believe the lies that are fed to them. Why? It has been suggested that those lies align with their own distorted perspectives. To that end, they are largely uneducated and/or ignorant of our history and how our governments actually function. In this way they become very passionate about their support of these indecent human beings.
My father often said, "In a discussion between reason and emotion, emotion will win every time." So it seems for our electorate.
justmyhumbleopinion. Your milage may vary.
I came over to bring up the Citizens United decision. It didn't come out of nowhere -- voter suppression in all its many forms is even more American than apple pie, and it gets fiercer as the electorate expands. All one needs is a calendar to see how closely both Citizens United and the Tea Party election (both 2010) followed the election of our first Black president.
It's easy to forget that Citizens United was a 5-4 decision. It was close -- all 5 members of the majority were Republican appointees, surprise, surprise -- and it was decided well before Mitch McConnell blocked Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland. It paved the way for Trump's election in 2016, and thus made it possible for Trump (or his Federalist Society advisers) to appoint Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett.
You touch on several good points. Your father’s point is well taken. It is a well established truth that humans believe they make decisions rationally and logically while the facts show involvement of emotion. This is especially true in the presence of stress, fear and/or anger.
However money is losing when candidates enter the field by campaigning “on the ground” face to face with voters. Large swaths of the country were abandoned & forgotten election after election. One big tell: no alternative candidates on the ballot.
As for doing their “own research”, there are 2 large obstacles. A. 54% of US adults read below a 6th grade level. This has many social and political consequences. B. Algorithms and micro-targeting distort results for all of us doing our “own research”.
(As a person with some background in various aspects of social studies, I dare say ignorance of how our governments actually function and history crosses a lot of political boundaries.)
I have found another roadblock to "doing your own research." The time it takes to do it and the length of the resulting report. It's not easy if you're attempting to get the facts.
Many of my own Facebook friends complain that my posts that generally cover Trump, MAGA, and the metastasizing trend we are seeing that is taking us straight to a dystopian autocracy are too long for them to read. They tell me they have better things to do and/or their lives to live. My response is that we are a technologically advanced, sophisticated society where simple answers are far and few between. That IF one is interested in the truth in an environment that has fire hose volume levels of misinformation THEN you have to be prepared for lengthy results. That lengthy articles and explanations are a factor of our historical moment.
That all makes sense. But we have to consider how people receive and store information. Why are Social Security Numbers hyphenated? Phone numbers divided by ( ) and hyphenated? It’s called ‘chunking’. The numbers are easier to remember by making them smaller digestible pieces & creating recognizable patterns. They are also limited in length. Your short term memory holds them so with repetition your long term memory can file them away. Think of it as our brains having RAM (short term memory) and a hard drive (long term memory).
Numbers aren’t words, but the same principle applies to searching for & explaining new &/or complex ideas - especially when literacy is an issue. The vocabulary is often unfamiliar - an obstacle to searches which require specific language. Unfamiliar language and ideas take longer to process and understand because the pieces are not stored in the “hard drive.”
Our “RAM” memory only holds a few things for maybe 20 seconds. About long enough to hold the beginning of a sentence until the end of the sentence. But only if the reader is not struggling to understand the words. Information dense articles or reports often stack multiple new (to the audience) ideas, facts and conclusions on top of one another. If taken in at one time, the sequence moves faster than the reader is processing & storing. This is not changed by our expectations or their need to know. We need to change how it is presented so the ‘chunks’ are digestable.
Hopefully this makes sense 😊
I know this wasn't the point of your reply, but a few words about why SSNs are hyphenated.
The first three digits indicate where the number was issued. The most important is the first digit, with 0 indicating New England, 1 meaning Mid-Atlantic, and increasing as you go west. I got my SSN in New Jersey, and it starts with 1, while my wife's (Illinois) starts with 3.
The middle two digits have to do with the year it was issued. My siblings got their SSNs two years after mine was issued, and their middle digits are two greater than mine.
The last four are just a sequence number. 0001 followed by 0002, all the way to 9999. My sibs' SSNs are identical except for the very last digit.
OK, that was more than just "a few" words.
Late in the evening 01/06/21 and early morning 01/07 Senator Andy Kim was observed cleaning trash and debris from the Capitol rotunda. After going through so much, he took energy to provide some healing.
The thing I worry about is that a full third of humans seem to be sociopaths, or worse. I never considered this until the felon was elected a second time. Now this keeps me up at night, and has caused me to step away from some relationships.
I've said this before: my parents always told me to beware of people who didn't like animals and who didn't have a sense of humor. How right they were.
Luv last sentence - and, about the sense of humor, being able to laugh at yourself too
Trump never laughs. He mocks, he satirizes, but laugh? not capable of it.
Agree about people who don't like animals. To me, there's something really warped about that, something that can't be fixed.
The "permanent" (until 11-3) 4x6' plywood sign in my truck bed reads, "Massive turnout defeats voter suppression. VOTE. Early and in person". So far at least, we still have a voice, and a say in who represents us, if we choose to exercise it.
And no, I can't picture trump playing with a dog. Any self respecting dog would pee on his leg at first sight.
I read a post yesterday on BlueSky. A man born in the UK, now resides in CA, that has worked for 17 years to open a Village for foster children. The purpose was to keep siblings tougher when placed in foster care. That man, Christian Bale, an actor, using his platform, and obviously his influence and wealth who saw an urgent need and saw that need to fruition.
And, remember Dolly and all the 'good' works she did in life without asking for accolades. It is possible to have a caring Nation, just open your eyes and try.
Because the billionaires have bought and paid for every single Republican officeholder and most of the Democratic ones as well. Humans are not welcome in office, just the oligarchs’ lackeys need apply. Citizens United and our corrupt and disgusting Supreme Court turned our country over to Elon Musk and his type. And here we are……
I've paid close attention to Iowa's governor campaign and as a lifetime Iowan have been disappointed with the past decade of heartless, mean spirited legislation emanating from our elected leaders. There was a time when it seemed "Iowa Nice" was a true picture of virtually everything that had Iowa attached to it.
Even our lifetime Senator, Chuck Grassley, beamed that "aw shucks" attitude that somehow was stolen away, replaced by name calling and school yard bullying.
But back to the governor race. Baby-faced Rob Sand (he admits he looks too young for his age) is leading the charge of bringing "Iowa Nice" back to our state. Born and bred in Decorah, Sand shares his life as an Iowa kid, skateboarding around town, loving pizza and ice cream and leading the singing of "America" during his unstaged 99 county citizen meetings where he makes certain both sides of the political spectrum have an opportunity to be part of the conversation.
Is he truthful? Reliable? As real as the day is long? Let's hope so. He appears to be genuine in his concerns for us Iowans.
My son wrote a beautiful letter about our mayor and wanting to meet her. So, he did and she was kind and gracious.
I would say that we all need to be like ZM or TW. One by one we can make a difference.
I am so embarrassed by our current government that I would hate to be associated with it. They break promises and long standing agreements. They act like a bunch of thugs, (I think they think this impresses people) and they are truly in government for themselves, not for the American people at large. Running for office costs a fortune and most real people cannot afford that. The system seems rigged against real humans even trying to run. there are so many things that need fixed to make this even possible.
It takes time, effort and money to run for office. After the campaign begins, here comes the influencers with their money and agenda. Few people have the integrity and self confidence to say “no”.