This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Elon Musk has committed to giving a super PAC supporting Donald Trump’s presidential campaign $45 million a month.
Did you know that the individual campaign limit is $3300 per person? That really applies to you and me, but not for people like Elon. By giving the money to an organization first, Elon’s personal money can then be legally donated to any American political campaign. And he wants it to go to Donald Trump, ASAP. It’s a $45 million monthly subscription to the potential next president of the United States.
It got me thinking. Why does a billionaire want to give another billionaire more money than you and I can ever imagine each month so that he can be elected to govern the free world? Do we really think it’s to help me and you?
Really pause and ask yourself, do these people really want to build a better life for the lower and middle class and rural America, or is it more likely that the mega rich instead want to continue to consolidate a hugely disproportionate amount of our economic resources, thereby making it harder for you to earn a living like it has been every day?
Many conservative politicians around the world get us to vote for them by exploiting our faith, and honestly I find that pretty appalling. They also exploit us because people who are different or new can make us feel uncomfortable— truly I think everyone feels that way sometimes.
It honestly gives me a lot of stress thinking about good people I know (and you know) who are being tricked into putting an oligarchy in power, going on information put in front of them algorithmically on social media platforms the ruling class literally own. I know that not all information you find online is bad— there are real trusted news sources that still exist. We should all pick a good daily or local newspaper or two, staffed by real people. It doesn’t have to be a left-leaning or right-leaning paper, just find a news source that you could get a printed copy of in your hands, produced in a community by people you know (or at least know of).
And believe me, I get people of faith voting by their faith— I do that too. But, as a lifelong Democrat voter born and raised Baptist— Democrats ARE people of faith. Good people in churches all over your communities are full of voting Democrats who love God and also know that we ought to have systems in place to help each other when we need it, using quality social programs that we should be able to all find a consensus on. These are voters and many politicians who are for the working and middle class. These are voters in your community who really did vote for Joe Biden in 2020.
We are often distracted by social issues that are so small, but somehow have developed into what we are told are literal battles of good versus evil. And oftentimes these are issues found in the privacy of people’s own bedrooms (which I really thought we all agreed we should not be in each other’s business about).
Take this as a small example: there are so few transgender people in America compared to the general population, but this issue takes up an outsized portion of our political and cultural discussions. Why can’t we just let them be who they want to be, and access the care they want? And, if we want to nitpick about at what age people should be able to receive that care, maybe let’s have that conversation, but in the meantime we don’t need to make transgender people’s lives (or anyone’s lives, for that matter) so miserable. Make no mistake— kids who are different are being ruthlessly bullied every day in our schools. Where do we think this measurable rise in bullying comes from, besides our news, our politicians, our churches, and our school board meetings?
I guess ultimately it seems that some people have started to boil our politics down into a state that is just too simple— Republican leaders are now telling people that the 2024 election is a literal matter of good and evil. I believe this with all my heart: We cannot allow “belief in a Christian god” or “not belief in a Christian god” to be a defining measure of what we think of as morally right and wrong. Regardless of where we believe we will spend the afterlife, we all are sharing this planet right now, and all of our faiths dictate that we must treat each other like neighbors.
So, again as someone from the deepest part of the South who still cares for and loves many people who remain here, I felt that this was important for me to say. If you don’t want to be my Facebook friend after all of that, I guess that’s ok.
By Thomas Dale/Atlanta, Ga.