I mean, the title is the article. The end. That’s the thought.

I was scrolling Bluesky from the comfort of my liberal echo-chamber and getting as hyped as everybody else for the (hoped for) ascension of Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico to the U.S. Senate (and more broadly hyped for everything else seemingly going our way these midterms). I remember when my liberal echo-chamber once led me to believe we were a country united in laughing at the buffoon yelling about eating dogs and cats, but that was two years ago. Many of the current social media shares regarding the candidates from Michigan and Texas include these banger quotes:

“The only minority destroying America is the billionaires.”

– Talarico, pointing out that when the right presents a group of people meant to inspire fear for them, that group is usually one percent or less of the population and holds no meaningful political power

“I’m dangerous to billionaires!”

– El-Sayed, tongue-in-cheek response to the right attempting to brand him as an outsider who is dangerous to traditional American values

They’re making the correct statements and I hope they win. I hope the whole United States experiences its own prosperous renaissance as is happening in New York City under Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his democratic socialist policies. I want Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to become the Democratic Party’s standard bearers. I don’t care what Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries do as long as they do it over there, far and away from us.

Except… here comes my default pessimism… we’ve heard all this before. And I’m old enough to have heard it before and before and before.

John Kerry and John Edwards (two white-guy democrats, the latter of which cheated on his wife while cancer was killing her) campaigned on “Help is on the way” and then “Hope is on the way!” The premise being that if you were a middle-class American struggling to make ends meet while Jerk-off Republicans gave tax breaks, bailouts, and no-bid contracts to their cronies, then relax, bruh. The Johns gotchu!

In the same way the American public education system burned the Pythagorean theorem into our minds for no apparent reason (you may have just involuntarily recalled A^2 + B^2 = C^2), our national elections produce formulaic two-party conflict that is never actually resolved. If you think about it, I’ll cast my vote for a progressive candidate in hopes that they save us from degenerate billionaires. My conservative counterpart will cast their vote in hopes that their would-be representative likewise saves us from their rogues gallery. Of course, I firmly believe that my boogeyman is real and my counterpart’s boogeyman is imagined.

To me, yes, billionaires are actively making our lives worse and destroying the environment for profit. No, drag queens are not using the library to trick children into sex-change operations.

Except, in an act of self-harm, I’ll try to imagine my conservative counterpart’s take.

No, billionaires create jobs and we can thank them for turning thousands of our citizens into millionaires. Yes, our children are best served by a nuclear family where a biological man provides and a biological woman nurtures.

We both understand our role this midterm, as set by the Establishment, is to stay engaged and vote. Maybe, more so on the left, the peer-pressured expectation is to also attend rallies and protests. Attend on the weekend, of course, because we can’t actually disrupt capitalism. We can try to make our voices heard, but we are obligated to do it when our bosses are playing golf, and then stifle our voices again by the start of business on Monday. Don’t make noise during the five important days! Whether you’re a democrat or a republican, work starts when it starts and never really ends. It doesn’t matter who wins elections. Articles are already popping up in case of Trump fuckery this November, reminding everyone that peaceful revolutions work better than violent revolutions. Uhhh, sure. But this social padding is appearing in conversation because Donald Trump and Elon Musk are currently on friendly terms. They only occupy that happy space when the time is nigh for election fuckery. So I’ll say it again:

The first prominent democrat to champion a general labor strike will go down in history as the savior of our country (and maybe the world).

I went to donate plasma today for the first time since my week-long ban for low protein ended and after the aggressive symptoms from this year’s COVID-19 and Flu vaccines passed (I shit my pants at the grocery store yesterday). The donation center was jam-packed with people in a way I hadn’t seen for awhile, if ever. The restroom smelled like it’s the only one in town open to our unhoused population. Which is a hypocritical gripe considering this paragraph’s parenthetical confession. The clinic staff on the donor floor and reception staff at the vitals checkpoint kept trading phone calls pleading for any available help. My eyes aren’t lying to me, the economy is bad. The economy is TOE UP. We got pigs sleeping in houses while horses work themselves to death. It’s fucking Animal Farm out here, man.

Actually, I wonder if the vaccine side effects caused my two-day illness or I picked up a bug spending that afternoon waiting on my free shots in the county health department. Oops. Off track! Do any of you even remember the phrase toe up? When you’re dead, the coroner puts a toe tag on you. That’s the economy for us poors. OK. Back on track.

The rich are living their best Sodom and Gomorrah while everybody else picks up the tab. After I donated plasma today, I went to Mama’s Pizza for the $8.75 lunch special I’ve enjoyed these past two years, but learned the special suddenly costs $9. Aren’t you sick of this shit? I’m fucking sick of this shit. I didn’t take my disappointment out on the friendly staff, but squeezed my observation into some benign banter to which the young adult taking my order replied, “Everybody is trynna survive this inflation, dude!”

Well, how are Barack and Michelle Obama trying to survive inflation? Oh, by creating streaming entertainment for Netflix.

How is Kamala Harris trying to survive inflation? Oh, by writing stupid-ass books.

See, the Legendary Super Saiyan, I mean Legendary Prominent Democrat, I keep thinking about doesn’t have to be from the current field of candidates. They just have to be prominent, stand to lose their capital for speaking out, and say what the rest of us already know has to happen:

NATIONAL STRIKE NOW!!! …We’re pretty clear on the president being a fraud, an insurrectionist, a traitor, and a pedophile, but that’s controversial to say if you’re a prominent democrat? Why? Because he’ll sue you? Because Netflix won’t partner with you? You’re part of the capital class and don’t want to join us poors? Weee haaave Raaamen.

Historically, the revolution… I mean strike… I mean revolution… has to start with us pleebs, and then its success or failure rests on whichever way the next layer up goes. If law enforcement sides with or is sympathetic to the rebel cause, our chance of success goes up exponentially. And as French realism painter, Gustave Courbet, presented in his 1866 oil-on-canvas painting, “Origin of the World…” Everybody has a mom (I softened that for ya, but you should definitely right-click and search the painting on your second read-through). Point being, I don’t think any baby was born hoping to become a jackboot thug. The Culture War meant to keep us pleebs distracted can evolve into the pivotal Class War we need to fight to achieve The New Climate-Forward Equality-Loving Era of Humanity. I’m using capitals to proper-noun it into existence.

Logically, we know things have to get worse before they get revolutionary, and change will bubble up from the bottom before boiling at the top, but imagine if we could start in the middle for once. Imagine if somebody already prominent and with a lot to lose wanted to do something selfless and make history. Imagine if instead of merging themselves with Netflix, the Obamas spoke out against the Paramount and Warner Bros. merger and encouraged everyone to mass-cancel all of their MAGA streaming services. Imagine if they acted like they knew late-stage capitalism is ensuring the Earth won’t be able to support our children and grandchildren. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? August 2026 was the hottest August in recorded history! And if we know that, imagine what the Obamas, Clintons, Harrises, and entire democrat upper echelon knows. Remember when Sleepy Joe, on his way out of office, was all, “Oh, Yeah! Beware of oligarchs, LOL.” Which brings me back to my point:

The first prominent democrat to champion a general labor strike will go down in history as the savior of our country (and maybe the world).

I dream big, but I vote with the left.

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