The Illusion of Independence in the United States

During this summer, we have watched the House and Senate under MAGA rule pass ridiculous tax cuts that benefits the wealthy while kicking out millions off medical care, and while simultaneously bolstering the gestapo-inspired ICE with a budget that’s even larger than the U.S. Marines. On top of that, we are watching the state of Florida build a literal house of cages in the middle of the damn Everglades with our federal dollars. On top of that, we are seeing unidentifiable masked agents kidnapping elderly, children, and everyone else in between in an attempt to boost up unnecessary deportation numbers that Donald Trump wants to reach.

Of course, the icing on the cake is watching all these Republicans constantly bend the knee towards the felon bully, and constantly deny that things have clearly gone south in every category imaginable except maybe the collective wealth of the richest class. We are the laughing stock of the entire planet, we have continued allowing countries overseas commit war crimes, we bombed a distant foreign nation without congressional approval, and under Trump there’s even an effort to arrest, detain, deport, and remove citizenship from people who aren’t following in line with the white nationalist cult drowning the morality of this entire country.

There is more energy towards confronting harmless Latinos living in this country than confronting actual war criminals committing actual war crimes. Immigrants are being seen as the culprit for all the country’s current problems, instead of actual hate groups and actual greedy corporations doing whatever it takes to take our money and resources.

So, what are we celebrating exactly on July 4th? Our independence?

Are we sure we’re even independent at this point?

It appears that the country is currently ruled by an orange king who is the physical embodiment of the concept of American Capitalism. There is no freedom in a country that is openly willing to strip you of your dignity, your health, your right to even be here. All of the ugliest beliefs and desires of the United States of America have been elevated into federal status; all of the worst people you know are being represented by the current administration. All of the worst ideas are being represented, all of the darkest temptations of willingness to strip benefits from the most vulnerable have become official policies.  

Donald Trump never has nor will he ever actually work for the people, he works for himself, for his rich buddies, and for the almighty dollar that he is always chasing. No amount of money will ever satisfy him, whether it’s the thousands of lawsuits he files, or the shady merchandise deals he makes, or even the potential foreign investments not for the country, but for the Trump brand itself. He will always be loved by his cult-like members, even though they don’t even benefit from his ideas in the first place. MAGA folks think they can become just like him, never realizing that Trump himself is the one that sets up the hurdles and obstacles that impedes on their happiness.

Donald Trump is the embodiment of the very thing that has stripped Americans of their actual independence. The God of this nation is Money, and Money is never pleased for as long as the profits aren’t profiting in spectacular numbers.

Side-Note: Even today as I write this, Microsoft, one of the top 10 tech companies in the history of the planet, is committing yet another round of layoffs in the gaming division despite having profits in the billions of dollars. Imagine working your entire life to enter the field you love, and then losing your entire livelihood just because some stockowners felt like the profit margins weren’t strong enough despite profits remaining consistently good for literal decades. Honestly, fuck this company, and fuck Phil Spencer for continuing to become a disease that infects the gaming industry.

The American Dream has become expensive, more difficult to properly obtain, even more difficult to maintain as even as you do the work and dedicate your part, it’s hardly guaranteed that you’ll earn back what you and your loved ones deserve. Are we sure we’re free? We’re free to make some choices and to openly criticize (most of the time, anyway), but it feels like the freedom to live a dignified life has been shrinking slowly but surely throughout this century. And the freedom to pick our candidates to represent us and try to make the United States a better place? Go look at what happened to Bernie Sanders and The Squad as dark money interests infiltrated their movement time and time again.

In the 1990s, my dad could afford a house while not even making $10 an hour. Today, buying a house while making $20 an hour is still wildly out of reach, and as a reminder the federal minimum wage is STILL under $10. And while some cities (even in so-called red states) have become smarter about wages, there are still entire swaths of the country (especially in rural areas) where making more than $10 an hour is an impossibility, and as a result moving up economically becomes an even more daunting task.

It has become wildly expensive to rent a place, to buy a place, to own a car, to pay for insurance, to be healthy, to travel abroad, to get an education, to vacation, to have kids, to feed and clothe said kids, and even to do simple things like having enough content to watch on television. It has also become outrageously expensive to attend a sporting event, to go to movie theaters, to watch a concert (During Taylor Swift’s concert run, it became cheaper to fly to Europe to watch her perform as opposed to trying to see her in New York or Chicago).

It has even become more expensive to receive news, as now we’re inundated with paywalls as we try to find information on the happenings of the world. It is expensive being poor, as people with no housing have to constantly pay money to obtain food, and then people with no personal transportation have to rely on public transit and on ridesharing apps to survive, and those costs can also add up.

The United States has become a wildly unfair rat race, an unruly constant chase of the almighty dollar just for strict survival, and the richest country in the history of the world doesn’t have to behave this way. It shouldn’t matter where in the U.S. I was born, but American Capitalism has left dozens of states behind and making them behave like small third-world countries with minimal hope. Tell me what chance a child born in the deepest regions of Mississippi has to thrive just as well as someone born in a more-advanced city like New York or Minneapolis.

As these devastating and long-lasting tax cuts are inches away from officially passing at some point this month, it makes the entire celebration of Independence Day feel hollow. We are a nation willing to throw millions off health care, toss millions more into cruel prisons and detention centers regardless of their contributions to the country, just to appease the extreme capitalist president who behaves like a king. We are willing to wreck millions of lives just because the bully is fine with extending the debt to ensure the tax cuts for the richest Americans continue.

How can anybody be patriotic if this is the way we behave towards each other?

How can I celebrate a country that continues to find ways to make life difficult for me and my Latino neighbors and family?

How can I celebrate a country that for generations has mocked, vilified, and indiscriminately harmed minorities of multiple varieties, while refusing to confront these sins past and present?

How can I feel patriotic when we have once again collectively allowed a bigoted racist felon back into office, even after all the terrible awful things he said and did throughout his political career?

What is there to celebrate when this country values money above health, the environment, morality, and basic decency?

The idea of America, the idea of the United States is vastly superior to what the country has become. And of course, it’s never ever too late to change course, its never too late to make the necessary dramatic changes for America to inch closer towards her fully realized potential. But I just don’t see those winds of change right now, too much bad news and too many setbacks keeps us trapped under the weight of American Capitalism’s sharp thorns. So it becomes hard to celebrate.

This nation has so many wonderful people, so many wonderful ideas, and so many spectacular examples of what America’s strengths are in terms of diversity, immigration, ingenuity, creativity, secondary education, community, and just the constant desire to go the extra mile and go above and beyond. Walt Disney World could have never happened in any other country, let’s be honest. There is an argument to be made about how we should do a better job of celebrating the accomplishments, whether it be the invention of jazz and country music, the creation of skateboarding and deep dish, etc.

But for as long we continue denying the sins of the past, it becomes hard to learn the lessons and we end up in a terrible cycle of bad economic times leading to the vilifying of minorities. And we’re currently on the ugly part of the cycle where we blame minorities and punish them in some messed-up twisted hope that it will lead to better economic circumstances for the middle and lower classes.

I truly want what’s best for this country, even if this country is full of people that do not actually want what’s best for me, because they are just as hurt and feel ignored about it, therefore wanting to ultimately inflict and share this pain towards others, especially those who don’t look/sound/think like them.

I do hope someday that we’ll get there, we’ll become one of the top nations in the planet, we’ll actually take full advantage of the wealth and resources and territory that had been accumulated over the years and build the diverse, beautiful, sustainable, and culturally harmonious country that we can indeed become. But it starts with declaring independence not from a king, not from the British, but from the temptations and eventual shackles of extreme capitalism itself.

We don’t need to hoard wealth, we don’t need to scrap for every penny, and we definitely don’t need to vote for those who intend to harm others with the purpose of maybe lowering some prices and making the cost of living less unbearable. The more Americans that discover and believe this, the better we will collectively become, and the closer we will be towards achieving true actual independence, independence actually worth celebrating.