Excerpt cross-posted from Mrs. Hart’s excellent Substack » check it out!
I swore I wouldn’t get into politics this election cycle, but I swear that basically every election cycle, and well, here we are! I want to not care … I try staying removed from it all, even with a hubby whose nine-to-five is literally politics, even as I curse under my breath while pumping gas that costs more than $5 a gallon, and as I channel Lucille Bluth at the grocery store when I spout off, “It’s one banana, Michael, what could it cost, ten dollars?” because the groceries are so damn expensive.
How long will it be before bananas are actually $10?
Fun story — in an episode of The Office from 2005, Dwight was tasked by Michael Scott to pick a cheap health care plan for the whole office. He picked the absolute worst one, because it’s Dwight, and according to Dwight, there is no health care in the wild. Just because I was looking up Office quotes, he said, “In the wild health care is Ow, I hurt my leg, I can't run, a lion eats me and I'm dead. Wow. I'm not dead. [Looks into camera] I'm the lion, you're dead.”
Anyway, Stanley reacted to this terrible, awful, healthcare plan with, “There's no dental, there's no vision, there's a $1,200 deductible.”
I don’t know about you, but in 2024 I’d kill for a $1,200 deductible.
Maybe 19 years from now I’ll kill for a $10 banana.
I’ve been involved in politics for a long, long time. I was phone banking in 2000 at 17 years old, when I wasn’t even old enough to vote for any of the candidates I supported. I got my first paid writing jobs through political activism. I met Justin through the grassroots firestorm taking over this new social media platform in 2008 called Twitter, and a few years later we worked together on a presidential campaign.
I have also leaned right since I was old enough to understand what taxes were. Not because I don’t believe in helping people, but because I believe “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.”
I know what happens to those tax dollars that supposedly go to help people who badly need it…
READ THE ENTIRE POST AT MRS. HART’S SUBSTACK
(do you recognize these people?)
If I thought voting would benefit me, it might be worth it. Will it change the fact that our largest monthly expense, rent, is going up 11% in January 2025 while they say inflation is now well below 3%? No. Will voting affect the still costly prices of buying food? No. Will it stop the eventual WW3 from happening? No. Will I be able to trust the medical system? No. Will I be able to trust the MSM? No. Thus, I doubt I will vote for the first time in about 50 years.