Welcome to Current Events: Hold My Beer!
Join me to try and make sense of, you know, everything.
Shit’s pretty grim.
Like most people as 2024 rolled into 2025, I was already pretty disillusioned about the state of American democracy. As a high school history teacher, you learn very quickly early in your career that when students talk politics in the classroom, they are wildly uninformed, and very few students are forming original opinions. I don’t think I’m breaking any new ground here when I say that high school-aged kids typically regurgitate their parents’ political ideologies.
Students bringing their parents’ opinions and politics into the classroom is nothing new. I’ve spent many hours debating moms and dads through a teenage proxy, and it can definitely be amusing at times to see independent thought creep into their brains. But over the past 8-10 years (mostly coinciding with the Cheeto Era™), things have taken a turn. Things have gotten nastier. More mean-spirited. More... noxious. I think this tweet sums it up.
I’ll concede some things upfront: Students have always been misinformed. That’s the nature of being a student—you’re uninformed. They’ve always parroted their parents' opinions on everything, from politics to faith to movies to their incessant desire to tell me that Diet Coke is loaded with chemicals (I. Don’t. Care. Give me allllllll those delicious, delicious chemicals).
I don’t want to play the Social Media card too heavily here, but this does feel different. Today’s students not only have parents to shovel their shit into their skulls, but social media enhances it. Everyone is so trapped in their safe bubbles that when outside thought pierces through, the person delivering that message isn’t just disagreeing—they are THE ENEMY. The repercussions of this are diabolical, in my view. So, when I say shit’s pretty grim, this is what I mean: We’re heading toward the event horizon of a permanent Idiocracy, and what’s worse is that we all can’t agree about that being a bad thing.
And that’s why I’m here. I had this building sense of doom that coincided with an intense urgency to do SOMETHING. I also freely admit that this is a vainglorious response. What’s the solution to it all, dear reader?
MY OPINIONS.
But, you know, I have to start somewhere. My hope is that I can build a community of like-minded individuals who see what’s happening to the country and also feel the urge to do SOMETHING. I really believe that if you get enough of us together, we can really affect change.
My plan going forward is to share my thoughts and hopefully gather enough of you out there who agree with how I see things, and then we can see how far the rabbit hole goes.
So come along with me. Read my stuff. Interact. Let’s discuss, disagree, prepare, and plan for whatever the fuck is coming our way. Let’s get started.
multiple laugh out loud moments