For a good many, our political involvement begins and ends at voting. Read up on the platforms so we can vote for whoever will implement policies that most align with our values, and the politicians do this with the taxes we pay. We expect then, that when shit gets bad, they will be there. If we experience a house fire, there will be a fire department available to respond. If we are experiencing violence, there will be a police department to keep us safe. If we experience unemployment, there will be a social safety net to catch us.

So as we experience more ecological crises, more economic downturn, more instances of community unsafety, we naturally are expecting that there must be someone who’s going to come along and save us from it.

Except there isn’t.

The political project in North America (and elsewhere) has always served to benefit the most privileged among us, and even then, not just cishet white men, but rich anyone, though primarily cishet white men. They walk this tightrope of decline - keep us comfortable enough while they take away our rights, our security, our safety, and we won’t fight back. People are surprisingly adaptable, so when one crisis hits, we acclimatize to the new status quo. We may be failed by our government, but surely it was just this time that they didn’t come through, not a system-wide failure to support anyone but the ruling class.

Eventually we may clue in that we’re being left behind, but the propaganda of how political change works - through voting - leaves us feeling helpless. No one came to save us so I guess we need to watch as the horrors roll in and count our blessings while others have it worse.

The thing is, the ruling class wants us to feel helpless. They keep us exhausted and unable to fight back. We cope by numbing out through a variety of means - drugs, alcohol, social media, sex, etc. We can see this collective exhaustion in the uptake of AI. People are outsourcing their thinking. People are too tired so they get Chat GPT to plan their vacation itinerary or write their essay for them. We also see this in Covid denialism. Covid is still here and kicking our collective asses - 1 in 10 experience either temporary or permanent disability (Long Covid), it’s wrecking our immune systems, and people are finding themselves sick many times a year. But the ruling class told us we’re back to normal (because of their own economic interests) and society breathed a sigh of relief at not having to think of the plague coming for us all.

They want us to feel helpless, and we can’t let them. We need to push back against their repressive regimes. There is a better world that should and could exist, but it’s something we will come to collectively.

No one is coming to save us. We are already here. We can be the architects of the future. We don’t have to give that job up to the elites of our society. We can take care of each other and meet one another’s needs. It’s so important that we know that. Through mutual aid and care networks, we can see ourselves into a society built on a foundation of values we believe in - love, hope, care, connection.

Together is the only way through this. Me, personally? I have hope we can get together and create a beautiful future.