My heart is on fire to Rebel. I want to go into the mountains, find the camp, and join my compadres. Yet...

[Magoo48]

here I am sitting and pecking out this bit of frustration. I am now the average age at which men die in the United States. My wife has dementia and needs my assistance, and I take enough pills every day that would constitute a meal in some parts of the world. Watching our government crumble before the abuse of fascism while not being able to respond in the way I yearn to is hard to stomach. The checks and balances are gone. The Supreme Court is a withering, vestigial structure, and Congress is much more than less meek and Idol. I know that we the American grassroots are the real check and balance, and the realization is, I cannot do the things that I desire to do to fulfill my part in resisting this atrocity.
I want to lash out: where are the high school students, where are the college students, where are they strong, young, vibrant American workers? What hell is everybody doing? fight goddamnit.
What I’m truly lashing out at is my own inability to participate in resisting at a level I feel appropriate. Acceptance is a bitch.

[rampartd]

1. i've waited my entire life for the revolution

now i'm too old and sick to be much use in the field.

[OldBaldy1701E]

10. Yep. Same here.

And, the new guard won't listen to me, so I am truly impotent towards the oncoming storm.

I took an oath. It hurts to be useless now.

[Irish_Dem]

2. Yes! Why have so many people folded like lawn chairs?

And grovel and kiss the ass of a ruthless psychopath fascist leader?
GOP congress, the courts, the supreme court, media and maga cult.
And the DOJ, FBI, DC police, all kinds of federal agents only too happy to be Trump's gestapo.

I don't get it either.

[Celerity]

5. Fear and/or they actually, at core, agree with christofash white nationalism

Massive damage has already been down and will continue to be done. Much of it will take decades to repair, if it can actually be repaired at all.

Also, millions will die prematurely, especially if/when they destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.

Deep down, I wager, Trump is yearning for a violent response to that, as then he can declare martial law and go full, open, no more mask dictator.

[marble falls]

3. We're all doing what we can. That's what counts. Every chip makes a difference.

[blubunyip]

19. Right

It has to build into a tidal wave.

[GusBob]

4. Take care of you and yours

And read For Whom The Bell Tolls Boy that was frustrating for Robert Jordan, hey
Armed Revolutions are a thing of the past especially in the first world

We got taken over the modern way, by social media

The next revolution will be digital

[WmChris]

6. I too

I also feel the frustration of being to old and infirm to physically engage. I do however have the ability to write, email, and call my elected officials. Letters to the editor are also at my disposal. I have noticed that there are many more letters crying out against the atrocious dismantling of our democracy joining my meager contributions. This local editorial page was dominated by MAGATS for a while but, the tide is turning for now. Keep on keepin on the resistance is growing.

[Escape]

7. I always wonder what it was...

before the Trump Revolution, that was so horrible for people on the Right?

Was it having a Black president? Was it gay people and foreigners being treated as equals? Was it being corrected or criticized for their racist opinions? Was it having to be exposed to other religions, other languages, other cultures?

What was such an overwhelming impediment to their collective happiness, that caused them to be willing to dismiss and destroy every good and decent thing about the United States that had been in place for more than 200 years?

I don't get it.

[BonnieJW]

9. My feelings exactly

We have come so far to just lose it all. The GOP will be forever reviled, no matter what happens. There are former friends I no longer engage with, except to politely say hello. Two of them moved out of the neighborhood because they were shunned. Being a trump supporter has become social leprosy.

Now all of us live in fear and maybe will become misery, and why? I will never understand how anyone thought another trump experience would be better than what we had

[mountain grammy]

11. Couldn't agree more..

but the propaganda has been strong since before I was born.. I think of Father Coughlin and Charles LIndbergh and all the white supremacy that's ruled us for so long. It' doesn't want to die.

[Escape]

16. I'm guessing that 29 years of carefully manipulated lies...

from FOX NEWS, had something to do with it.

[mountain grammy]

17. Indeed. The icing on the cake.

[Kaleva]

21. About 5% of the adult population watches Fox News

People watch that which supports their already formed world view. We here at DU don't watch Fox News because what they put out challenges our world view and we reject it.

[Escape]

22. The reason I don't watch Fox News..

is not because it challenges my "world view". I don't watch it because it is propaganda, distortions, lies, obfuscations, gas lighting and conspiracy theories.

[Kaleva]

23. You just admitted it challenges your world view

[La Urraca]

15. Racism/ undereducation/ constant propaganda

Great comment .
I was so happy when Obama was elected, I thought we were finally moving past racism .
Whew... I was so wrong...
it whipped the racists up into a crazed, resentful frenzy .
Plus the constant right wing drum beating lies to an uneducated populous ...
Many more factors , which you all know .
A great tragedy for us and our ( now maybe lost) Republic 💔
I am now old, but still willing to mount the barricades .

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

20. I've been to few protests against the iDJT this year

and I finally concluded last week that all were at least 85% boomers.

Many of the young actually believe the "both sides" BS. No difference between Dems & Rs. A few Gen Xers & Zs on Reddit recently said, "Yeah we see all the yelling between you guys (Ds & Rs) and we just laugh." The three of my neices I most expected would naturally become Dems (their mom & I took them to the 1st Obama inauguration!) didn't even vote last year.

Their knowledge of history and view of the world is now so far from mine I can't even begin to understand how they don't see this as a potentially tragic moment for our country if we all don't rise up against it.

To them we're a racist misogynistic, politically corrupt country, so what's to save?, I guess.

It's so utterly confusing & depressing.

[Prairie_Seagull]

24. I would like to see some more concrete numbers.

I went the the Portland Or. march and yes boomers were in greater number but was surprised to find many younger folks. Est. 70/30% Still way to low but not nothing. Their energy was uplifting for those of us with bad bits. We need their energy and Ideas.

I believe Beyonce and Taylor Swift along with other Mega stars could be of great help.

For the movement to take it's next logical step, we will need them.

IMO

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

25. Totally! We need some persuasive organizers to

mobilize gens X & Z. They need to see it's not just "boomers" fighting. Boomers on whom many put the blame for today's problems.

My parents & other boomers were living their lives, refusing to condone white supremecist groups & actions they were seeing, but also just living, often in the burbs. They were going to college raising famIlies, etc.They didn't feel the urgency to make activism the main focus of their lives. They were doing all they knew to help.

All these youngsters today think they would've been done better, but been more woke, etc., but I doubt it. Most people were just working on keeping their families functioning.

My parents both came from very racist, and bigoted families. It took a lot for them. Not to go along with that, but to vote for politicians who promised to improve things. To not use racial slurs in the home.

Now they're just lumped in with the RW boomer who actively worked to eneact & uphold segregation. Its frustrating for them.

[Aristus]

27. They lost their free work force. Bottom line.

As long as chattel slavery existed, these vile, horrible people were able to convince themselves and others that they treated their human “property” “like family”, while still insisting that they themselves were superior to those they kept in bondage.

Once slavery was abolished, the paternalistic mask got ripped away, and they started lynching their former “family” for the crime of insisting that their human rights be respected. That’s it. Every right-wing pushback against social progress since then has just been one massive, murderous, screaming hissy-fit because they lost their free labor force, men they could whip, women they could rape, and children they could sell with impunity.

Call them rednecks, hillbillies, clodhoppers, swamp-swimmers, or any other name in the book, they will wear them as badges of pride. Take away their free work force, and they go berserk.

[Bumbles]

8. I, too, feel the frustration, wonder why there isn't more noise, more of an uprising.

Or, is there but it's not being reported or being relegated to the back pages. Are we, in this digital age, too easily distracted and manipulated? During the Viet Nam War protests, colleges were generally the pivot from which uprisings often happened. Perhaps we're too dispersed to be able to coalesce as we did then.

We may not be able to bring our bodies to anything more than rallies, but that's not nothing. And we can bring experience and wisdom, we can write letters, we can question and perhaps bring pause even to those on the right. It's easy to see only the dark, but we can't give up. Though Pollyanna-ish, I'm hoping for a reawakening and a recognition among those still not "woke" about what we may lose forever.

[LaMouffette]

12. We're watching Netflix. It's said that if Nixon had Fox News, he never would've been impeached. I say if King George III

had had Fox News AND Netflix, YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok, and all the other mind-numbing media, there never would have been an American Revolution.

On the other hand, the recent massive protests all around the country, even Alaska!, prove that if you piss people off enough, they do, indeed, take action. That is what keeps me from despairing these days.

[S/V Loner]

13. At my age I don't have that much to lose if...

I thought it would make a “significant” difference.

[Magoo48]

18. I hear that. I also don't want my kids and grandkids subjected to this shitshow.

[FailureToCommunicate]

14. Well, as "Then Came Bronson" used to say: "Hang in there"

I'm likely your age as well, and am trying to stay fit enough to man any battlements that arise to fight whatever is likely to present as our foe. I made it though many demonstrations, tear gassings and arrests back in the 60's, and I'm smarter now, but no less angry. More so, but, yes, like you I am greatly discouraged by the apparent apathy or impotence, or distractions, of this generation.
The recent rallies felt good, and I hope they did something, but the media is indifferent or emasculated these days, and that doesn't help.
Hang in there.

[Laurelin]

26. FWIW i think you're all wonderful

We are all doing what we can, and I don't think I would be able to do my small part without all of you. You keep me informed and inspired and help give me the strength to keep doing my part, which also seems like not enough.
Than you all and thanks DU.