Sans Seraph

Tag: republican

  • You are (not) free

    I was born to deeply religious, conservative parents in a deeply conservative part of the country. I was raised to believe in the supremacy of the United States, that we were on the right side of history, that we were “the good guys.” At some point in my life, I even wanted to join the military, to serve my country, and to participate in whatever way I could in the great American experiment.

    Today is the Fourth of July, a day that used to be my favorite holiday. Each year in rural Montana we would go into town to watch the parade and spend time at the local faire in the park. This small town was the epitome of life when “America was great.” This was the kind of life that people had in mind when the wave of conservative thought rot swept the country. A place where you knew your neighbor, where you lived in harmony with the land, and where the great Big Sky that the state of Montana is known for opened wide to greet you.

    It was a town with such accolades as “the place FDR visited once,” and one of the few places Max Brooks in his book World War Z said would survive the zombie hordes. A place where if you were white and male, you enjoyed the pinnacle of existence, as long as you had a job; at the mill, or the mine, or worked for the Forest Service.

    Well, the mill closed ages ago, and the mine is, well, a mine. Many forestry jobs were lost when the government gutted the Forest Service, selling out the land that some many people, who voted vehemently for this administration, love and cherish. The nearest hospital is the next town over, and will probably close with the recent cuts to healthcare. Most of the people in the town are aged, and will almost certainly now suffer a higher mortality rate due to lack of accessible healthcare.

    Corporate interests will move in on the newly purchased land. Maybe enough labor jobs in logging and resource gathering will spring up to keep what few young people remain interested as the trees on the mountains thin, and the fish die out. Maybe, finally, after the mountains are run through with shafts and tunnels, and the Earth herself tries to shake us off her skin like biting fleas, will the people realize what they have done.

    When I planned out this post, I had intended to write about how today, as we celebrate the independence of our country from tyranny, that I, a trans woman, am less free that I have ever been before. I, someone who at one point wanted to serve this country, who, for all intents and purposes, has done everything “right” in my life, am in a position where I am simply a political pawn for our corporate overlords. All of that is true, and, honestly, the working class hasn’t been free in this country since, well, ever. However my thoughts today return to my small hometown in northwestern Montana.

    The overwhelming majority of those that fell prey to the MAGA cult are people like my parents and former neighbors, who wanted so desperately to live out in the wilderness and enjoy the serenity of nature and the quite of only occasional social situations that they deliberately chose to live in what could be called economically and educationally depressed areas. It is the people in these places that will feel a sickness of the soul that will grind them down into weak things even as people like me are hunted and destroyed bodily.

    The passing of the Bulbous Bubo Betrayal has doomed the average American worker, both those that voted for this administration, and those that so viciously fought against it, to a fate worse than what potentially awaits me and other trans people. Though it has become clear that the ruling body of this country will stop at nothing until me and my ilk are rounded up and done away with, it is those that linger and will have to endure the epigenetic blight that will suffer the most. You see, I never thought I was free. I took up the mantle of womanhood knowing that I would have to fight for my rights, yet I did so willingly. It is those who are truly the most vulnerable, who were duped into thinking what they were doing was right, who believed the lie that they were not free who will suffer the most as their spirit decays.

    So today, it is as I prepare to celebrate not the birth of my country, but of my community, that I lament the fall of the noble redneck, hillbilly, and good ol’ boy. The farmer, the miner, and the rig worker. To all of those that have finally realized their betrayal, who now realize that the lines aren’t left and right, but us and them that I say “welcome to the party.” You were always allowed in. We love you, and it’s okay. Now, grab your torch and pitchfork, and let’s get to work.

  • Searching for a former clarity

    I don’t think I’ll ever get used to winter in Seattle. I am beginning to see the fleeting light of my fourth spring here, and, though normally I am ecstatic this time of year for the return of the light and warmth, this year it seems like that same feeling of rebirth and energy is missing.

    Spring really is a beautiful time here. There is just so much green; green that wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t such a wet place. Every year around April the dark lessens, the air warms, and the rain slowly retreats, ever warmer and less frequent, into the most beautiful summer you can imagine before once again running away for nine months.

    Once the flowers start to bloom and life returns to the land, it has always felt like life is also breathed back into me. I have terrible seasonal affective disorder, or, I did. I was really hoping that this winter would be different, because I am different, and, it was, but not in the way I was hoping.

    My life seems to have taken on a path of extremes. Where before starting my transition I existed in a state of constant melancholy, reaching down to despair, I now fluctuate between extreme happiness and extreme agitation. On one hand I have the endless sea of love and care that is my relationship with my partner, who continues to surprise me with the depth of her love for me, and on the other I am bearing witness to the destruction of my homeland as it is gutted and resold to the highest bidder.

    Being trans in America in 2025, or, honestly, being a person with a lick of sense in America in 2025, has become akin to watching a car crash in molasses. The die is cast, the stage is set, we all know where this is going, but the process into fascism seems inexorably slow. With the blanket tariffs, and the elimination of wealth with a speed and magnitude which has never been seen before, I think no one that isn’t caught up in the cult thinks that this ends any other way. At least the orange rectal fissure got one thing right, he is going to run this country like a business, which is to say, burn it down and sell it off to the highest bidder.

    The April 5th protests were the largest ones yet, and somehow the sycophants think that it’s all a ruse. The protesters were paid, the images were AI generated, whatever mental gymnastics they have to do to make it seem like the path they are on is the righteous one. History will not look fondly on this time, yet the outcome will not be a return to American greatness.

    If the twentieth century was the century of pax americana, then the twenty-first will be the century of American despair. We are no longer “the good guys,” hell, we probably never were. John Wayne isn’t coming in to save the day. In fact, like John Wayne, who made a name for himself playing a soldier on the silver screen while other men gave their lives in war, yet never went to war himself, America has become that which it originally opposed, a bloated tyrant inflicting its personality on distant shores.

    A lack of equality and fairness is the problem here. As long as one group, one country, one person, holds more power than another, there can never truly be peace. For a long time I thought we were moving in the right direction. I harbored the light of hope in my heart for so long, yet like the dull spring in Seattle I now face, that light has dwindled and the magic seems to be fleeting. I loved this country. This is my home, but I do not feel at home here. I have no intention of leaving, but my duty is not to this land, but to those who dwell in it. I do not know if I any longer wish to identify myself as American. I simply exist as a citizen of humanity, who hopes that with each action going forward that I am on the side of goodness and love.

    The wheels of history will continue to turn, and just as how a dreary spring will give way to the light and energy of summer, this will pass. The house divided will fall, and the survivors will build a new house, one with its walls made to include all, and it’s foundation built on the weary packed earth of history.

    Let us hope that next time we remember.