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Why I will not be there for you [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-24

There are many frightening and cruel things proceeding from the early steps of the 2nd Trump administration. Things that deserve opposition. Things that deserve to be evaluated, criticized, challenged. I sincerely hope that many of the efforts of the administration come to nothing, and I wish success on those opposing them, even while believing the worst possible outcome is already inevitable. and while it pains me to say, wishing is all I will be doing, it is true. Wishing is all I will be doing.

In my past, I have been a Democratic precinct captain (not a very good one, I admit), a canvasser, a voter registerer. I've marched in mass protests and small protests. I've brought food to occupiers and provided monetary and moral support. I've cried at the grieving for soldiers killed in wars that seemed little more than adventurism. Those were good things to do, and I got a lot out of doing them, hopefully even accomplished something, but I won't be doing those kinds of things in this instance.

Is it because I believe that those who oppose and protest the administration will be chastised, harassed, and punished. It certainly weighs on my mind and it tears me up in the guts thinking of what is coming for our progressive leaders, even our moderate leaders. Will there be an American Gulag? I can hardly doubt it. I fear for leaders of minority movements, and I fear for participants in this age of artificial intelligence, in this age of cameras on every corner accessible by authorities, authorities who are not nearly within the bounds of what was, until a month ago, considered to be mainstream ethics, morality, and legality. Yes, it weighs on me, but it is not the main reason.

The main reason may resonate with some, others will discount it as stupid, perhaps as immoral or wrong because even (maybe even especially) among the progressive left, voices that fail to align with the priorities and thinking of whoever is speaking are ridiculed, discounted, pronounced wrong, immoral, stupid. Intolerance, as it were, has jumped from one ship to another. Much as I disdain the tendency to silence other voices, yet I understand I have no ability to influence the tenor of the debate.

"What then will you do?" you may reasonably ask. I'm glad you let me lead you down this path. I am pointing everything I can to the short, medium and long term support of certain particular disadvantaged young people. When I was active in progressive protests and actions, I was simultaneously an adult volunteer and leader in a mainstream youth organization. I learned about leading activities beneficial to those young people. I was in a popular organization which attracts participation by a large number of middle and high school youth. I witnessed just how beneficial it was to them. Although this organization mainly attracts youth with strong parental support (and indeed it reinforces parent/child relationships through recruitment of parents as volunteers, through training and oversight, and through increased time together), I helped a project which recruited children from underserved communities, children at least a little more at risk, and I worked hard at fundraising to cover the costs of supporting these children. Some of these young people flourished. The ones who did shared something with the mostly middle and upper class children who have always been the main audience of this organization (I speak of scouting/boy scouts) - they had strong parental support and guidance.

"That's good and all, but what will you do in these times when we need every person who can support the movement fully engaged in protest and action?" Fair enough. Some months ago I began a support program for young people far more disadvantaged than the ones I used to work with. These children are nearly all young women living in group homes, under the authority of a state foster system. All are minors, most 16 or 17, but as young as 12. Many are transient within the system. I see them once, three of five times before they move on to wherever the state and family courts move them. Some are long term. They will likely live in the same group home until they age out on their 18th birthday. These truly have no discernable family support.

I cannot really tell anyone about them. I cannot talk in social media about what I do without some risk to them. I appreciate very much the overworked but underqualified staff who take daily responsibility for these young people. They seem to appreciate a lot that someone else makes a program for the young people, however limited it is, however under resourced, despite its very limited impact. I sometimes have trouble energizing myself to continue the work.

Two things keep me going and there is one, perhaps sad but inevitable practical result. One is a spiritual/religious conviction that what I did before was preparation for this task I am now involved with, and it couples with the spiritual/religious acknowledgement that no one else is even trying. The young people need more support than I am giving, and I hope I may increase my own output to deliver more of what they need. The second is knowing someone who came out of the same kind of system. She is a successful adult, successful in the sense of being employed, being good at what she does, being valued by her clients, and making good money out of it. When I get discouraged I call her and hear how bad her home situation was, how hard but necessary it was for her to go through a group home, how support programs like the one I coordinate made a big difference in her life. She says it saved her life. She tempers my expectations when she reminds me that fewer than one in five children who go through such systems have even moderately successful lives - lives not characterized by jail and prison, by addictions, by the things most of us want children to avoid in their adulthood.

I don't make myself out to be any sort of saint. I just cannot escape the conviction that someone should make the effort. That the someone is me. That they need someone doing this for the long run. Just imagine, the 12 year olds will still be minor children when the current term of the administration has come to an end. Not that I expect such an easy result on the political side as time solving the problem, but I need to devote myself to this little priority, this little program. All the attention I could give to the good of society, to the good of the nation and its people, I need to devote instead to the good of these few young people I need to find more, better ways to support them so that at least among this small number of of the disadvantaged needy of the world receive some portion of waht they need to avoid bad outcomes and to plot a course to a better life. Again, doing this doesn't make me any kind of saint, but in my own view of myself, it makes me human. So, for this reason, I will not be there for the big battles. I reserve all my efforts for this one small thing. I hope someone will understand. It is why I will not be there for you.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/24/2305929/-Why-I-will-not-be-there-for-you?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=community_spotlight&pm_medium=web

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