The 2026 Goal of Fighting Fascists with Reclaimed Free Time

For the record, I am very privileged and have lived a privileged life.

I have been very lucky to have loving parents and loving family overall, I am lucky to have a job that pays me well, I am lucky to be living in the progressive-leaning Central Florida area, I am lucky to have survived an immigration process before its current-day deterioration, I have been fortunate enough to have met hundreds of wonderful people throughout my life working for Tourist Country.

Considering what I’ve seen, who I’ve interacted with, and what I’ve learned about places in this country and in Latin America, I have lived a very fortunate life that is one that millions around the world would gladly trade with me. Everything I am about to say moving forward should have these statements in the background so that I don’t come off as a bitter angry buffoon who doesn’t realize his fortunate circumstances.  

But.

This ridiculous ongoing bigoted bitter cult led by a grumpy dying old man has clearly poisoned the United States of America, and has also drained me of just about all the creativity that exists in my bones, as it becomes a daily mission to not fall into the cynicism and rage that persists in the blood of the MAGA movement.

I used to write significantly more often, and my output used to be much stronger even when working 50-60 hours a week at Disney. I used to write fun essays, reviews, screenplays, television episodes, and other random works (somewhere in this laptop is a Cowboy Bebop script and a powerpoint about a Nintendo theme park); but the desire is impossible to maintain when so much bad news followed by even more cynicism and craving to inflict pain to others. Believe it or not, I even used to make video games with RPG Maker 2000, I used to have a (unsuccessful, but slightly ahead-of-the-curve) YouTube channel, and even once upon a time I had a one-person podcast. I have about four television pilots and three screenplays completed, with dozens more to work on. Not saying I’m some undiscovered savant whose lack of success is a Greek tragedy, but I do believe that some of my works deserve their chance, especially as we see some of the slop that comes from the streaming services and social media and the AAA gaming industry. But the success of lack thereof isn’t the point.

Nowadays, most of my time and energy is being spent defending those who need defending (especially Latino America), battling those who have clearly become lost in the bitter sauce, and just trying to seek some form of sanity in a country that continues to devolve into baskets of basement-dwelling deplorables. White supremacists are openly celebrating and embracing the violence, white nationalists are developing foreign policy, and all of those on the moral right side of the fence continue battling each other while trying to make sense of just how stupid everything has become. Even after leaving Facebook and Twitter, the collective edgelord brain rot has poisoned places like YouTube, parts of Reddit, and especially Meta, where the algorithm has become corrupted beyond recognition. Even mainstream media outlets have fallen into the supporting dictatorship trap of appeasing bullies in exchange for economic peace. CBS News, what the hell has happened to you?

Then we have the A.I. crisis, and yes it’s an actual crisis, threatening to drain even more creativity out of people across all 50 states and beyond who enjoy making content and art. Now the current administration has decided to gamble the entire economy on the future of artificial intelligence, and for all the wrong reasons. We are not seeing stateside A.I. being used or even rumored to be used to improve housing, infrastructure, economics, health care, medicine, mental health, gun control, or any of the essential services and dilemmas that have been underfinanced throughout this century. These tech companies primarily want to use A.I. to replace people, as A.I. doesn’t unionize, doesn’t demand fair wages, doesn’t demand proper treatment that they deserve.

A.I. under the corrupt Tech Bros wants to control all aspects of creativity and the distribution of said creativity without there being any legal setbacks or obstacles. The Tech Bros want to cannibalize on the works of other people while trying to dismiss its importance by openly claiming that people don’t have a need to go through the processes when the tools of thievery are already there and available.

This tool of thievery and cold drainage of art challenges the notion of Americans’ placement in society altogether. If A.I. can make/re-create your movies, your music, your shows, while also making solutions that are usually done by people, then why bother fighting for worker’s rights? If there are no workers, who can disrupt the constantly-escalating profits? If A.I. can handle post-production necessities, why even hire artists, art directors, and other behind-the-scenes roles that can aesthetically improve your product? Notice that when discussing the future of the technology, it’s more geared towards the creative production side of things.

The parasitic antisocial billionaire class wants to find a way to continue to horde wealth and resources while ignoring the human interaction aspects entirely. It’s a different kind of bullying, but one that aligns with those who hate minorities and hates anything that is different from their selfish mindset. This is why the Tech Bros are in bed with the Trump Administration, their hatred and dismissal for those seeking a better future, and their devilish desires to use up whatever resources are needed to meet their end goals, regardless of the consequences. Remember it was Peter Thiel who helped J.D. Vance’s rise to the vice-presidential position.

This is how we end up with A.I. spreading misinformation to promote the fascists, poisoning water supplies, disrupting small towns having to live next to giant headache-creating data centers; and this is also how we end up with Trump invading Venezuela for minerals and oil, while also looking at Colombia, Mexico, and Greenland to do the same. Before the giant push for financing and legally supporting A.I., the Tech Bros had to buy up all the social and mainstream media to ensure that their mindsets are front and center and artificially popular.

Those of us fighting against this authoritarian movement financed by billionaires and run by bigots are having to battle from multiple angles.

This isn’t a fight against one major entity, there are multiple factions of greed, evil, and cruelty joining forces to try to dismiss and limit the progression of American society. United States is the richest country in the world and has a worse health care system than Mexico (rising star during the Morena era), a worse public transportation system than the Dominican Republic (fun fact, D.R. and Brazil have better bus systems AND buses than the U.S.), stronger anti-abortion laws than Afghanistan (not a joke), a larger societal wage gap than France before their guillotine-laden Revolution, worse education system than multiple nations with 1/20th the economy of the 50 states, and worst of all an electoral system that has yet to be revived since the late 1960s.

It doesn’t have to be this way at all, and the endgame for those who don’t want to accept the current realities is to aim for a United States that will actually approach and challenge these societal deficiencies I had just discussed, against the wishes of the bullies and softies currently at the White House.

Admittingly, I’m sure some of you right now might be lost as to why I bring up my personal creative battery being empty in the same essay as the rise of white supremacy and authoritarianism, but the truth is these things are actually connected.

Any administration, any political movement, any sort of ruling class that is anti-art will always always always ultimately be fascist.

Nazis didn’t burn books to fight the cold.

North Korea doesn’t ban all western media because they want to promote local filmmakers.

They want you to be tired of the bullshit. They want you to stop trying to find your own path. They want you to stop resisting their bloodthirsty demands for more money and resources stateside and abroad. Their battery remains full as long as people generally give up on politics, give up on seeking a better life without these conglomerates that monopolize on your free time. Zuckerberg and Co. wants to maintain the iron grip on social media, and then use the extra money to fund the politicians that won’t chase after the shitty dangerous apps that have literally toppled foreign governments, caused genocides, and enhanced the friction among the online conservatives and online progressives.

On top of all that, these culture vultures don’t want you to have actual hobbies, instead forcing you all to work two maybe three jobs just to survive, and then fill the gap of the minimal free time with their social media to help trigger fights, feed you slop enhanced by a predatory algorithm, and keep your mind away from the prospects of a better life. Work yourself to death, allow them to cannibalize your skills, pump out some kids, toss them into the extreme capitalist system, and never give you enough time to consider whether or not a better United States is even possible. I am struggling to maintain my hobbies and interests, and I don’t even have kids or a spouse to take care of, I can’t imagine how difficult it is for people with actual families.

The political section of the daily fight against these villains can be a wildly frustrating one, especially when one party is ruled by greedy assholic edgelords, and the other major party is currently ill-equipped to combat them as they are too old and too old-school to understand the urgency. Being informed is indeed crucial, but it doesn’t have to be your primary source of resistance, especially as we can’t achieve true escape from the MAGA era until we finally kill and eradicate the electoral college. The incessant noise and mischief are part of the strategy, MAGA is constantly establishing chaos to make it difficult to develop a response strategy.

“Flood the Zone” is meant to confuse, to frustrate, to physically and mentally wear you out. Its harder to ultimately convict when you break over 100 laws as opposed to breaking a few. I mean this without any exaggeration, but the next president will have likely over 1,000 broken laws to investigate and hundreds of criminals from this current administration to try to convict.

So if you want to battle fascism in 2026 and beyond, there are a variety of ways to go about it that’s not constant politically charged involvement.

Make your art. That’s another form of resistance.

Art doesn’t just create satisfaction for the artist (except for the tortured artist crowd), it can expose, it can create conversations, it can inspire, it can craft even more ideas from those who engage with it. But even in its fundamentally basic level, they can be temporary beacons of happiness under grim circumstances. Art is crucial, as cliché as this all sounds, and we all deserve the ability to create and engage with it without feeling drained, without feeling like it’s a waste of time.  

Craft and perfect your art, work on your skills, treasure your free time, don’t be afraid to spend money for creative purposes or for travel, don’t be afraid to actually unwind and focus on yourself. Listen to that music, play those video games, work on those recipes, engage with the art that people spend their lifetimes trying to perfect, donate to other artists seeking help to fully finish their content, and maybe the creative spark within you will suddenly rise like a phoenix.

Maybe someday you’ll never have to work for the corporate slobs ever again, as your art can inspire enough to make a substantial living. But even if it doesn’t (and maybe you don’t want your art to have to conform to the current rules set by the greedy overlords), fight for your right for happiness even under the grim circumstances crafted by hordes of unhappy people that want to drag you down towards their pit of despair.

Even if you personally don’t feel creative enough to make anything, at the very least ignore the A.I. slop, ignore the algorithm, manipulate the algorithms, run off the beaten path and explore beyond the fictional limitations of American social media. The internet is a giant place for all kinds of expressionism, and you don’t need the parasites running social media to ever force you to drift in a specific direction. Open your horizons and see people and people’s art from all over the world, you’ll be amazed at what you can discover.

One of my goals of 2026, during this era where it appears I’m watching a giant empire crumble into a mediocre shell where only the strongest cities will survive, is to try to work more on my hobbies and interests. I used to play more video games, and today I’m about 90 games behind. I used to watch movies; currently I’m over 200 movies behind. I’m also set on trying to discover more music, with Radio Garden and Every Noise at Once being additional options alongside Spotify (which, I sadly still cannot quit as its still better for me than Apple Music and YouTube Music---with the other options also being morally dumb).

Most importantly though, I want to be more consistent in my writing, I want to be a little more consistent in calling out those trying to keep us down, but spend significantly more time working on scripts, on fun writings, and things that keep me creatively fresh and keeps my head above water. I have about 2,000 photographs I’ve been wanting to share and over a dozen places I’ve been wanting to write about, and I’m trying to establish a manageable schedule while also trying to keep away from the toxic social media battlegrounds trying to pull people away from the cult and away from the doomerism that helped result in Kamala Harris losing the election in 2024.

Maybe I had to write this in order to remind myself to try to enjoy life much more, even when things look stupid, hopeless, and would have NEVER HAPPENED IF BERNIE HAD NOT BEEN SCREWED BY THE DN---oops, I did it again. Back to the topic.

Maybe I have to speak into existence that MAGA is temporary, Trump can’t live forever, Vance doesn’t have the sauce, and we have plenty of examples of where we should be moving forward (New York City’s newest administration). Keeping faith is crucial, maintaining my sanity and creative spark is important for ongoing survival.

Demanding that everyone take up arms and enter the trenches of social media to fight for a better tomorrow shouldn’t be the strategy moving forward, there are millions of people incapable of such a fight for a wide variety of reasons. United States in the 21st century has seen multiple wars, multiple economic collapses, an attempted coup, public executions by the police, a global pandemic mixed with an anti-vax and anti-nursing movement, multiple bombings of foreign nations, assassinations, a genocide being financed by us, and a slow quality downward spiral of many dependable American brands from McDonalds to Warner Brothers. Many Americans are struggling to survive, and most are living paycheck-to-paycheck to support themselves and their families; so asking them to have to take the extra steps to stand up to fascists when said fascists are in control of the military as well as ICE is a tall ask, especially in a country that is 4th largest in the world and population-wise more spread out than even Mexico.

There are other ways to combat the fascism, and it starts with ensuring that they don’t take your peace and your morals. The vast majority of Americans deserve a better life, deserve a better future, and deserve to live a life with decency, happiness, and room to explore what the world has to offer. Most importantly, we have to reject anyone and everyone that isn’t fighting for the same, regardless of party affiliation.

Embrace happiness over cynicism and doomerism. Reject slop. Reject companies and services that have decided to skim their quality. Reject the algorithm. Reject the ragebait. Reject their efforts to normalize their behavior. Prove that the United States is strongest when it is diverse, creative, spiteful towards wannabe kings, and always seeking a better future for themselves and their neighbors. This is a lesson that I have to learn for myself, but also wish more would follow as we try to navigate the rest of this decade sorting through the consequences of our collective actions and inactions.

Time is an absolutely precious commodity, and each of us don’t know how much of it we have. We must stop giving the enemies and algorithms so much of it and keep more for ourselves and our loved ones as we hopefully march forward towards a brighter future without the cult and the cult’s sponsors pulling us back.

Observe art. Make art. Enjoy art. Find your peace. Treasure your time.