I'm Homeless
I’m currently homeless. Literally.
If you are reading this piece on the same weekend it was released, then I am literally between homes. I’m currently dodging crazy drivers, traveling from the beautiful city of Santa Fe to an undisclosed location in Texas.
I say “undisclosed” because I tend towards being private, but also because in this current political climate, with emotionally unstable “pressure-cooker’ people being stoked daily by mainstream news media, I need to be private.
And what do I mean about “pressure-cooker” people?
I mean people who are not in any way in control of their emotional state. People who have unwittingly given over control of their senses to corporations. People who are led by the narrative, without their own common sense stepping in to course correct.
I feel for them. It’s hard to know that one has been invaded and occupied by an ideology. They think that their thinking is normal. Healthy even. But there are signs…
Uncontrolled rage, for example. Abrupt emotional state changes. Triggers, we used to call them. Anchors in hypnotherapist-speak. Programmed, purposeful, intended responses to stimuli. The Pavlov’s dog response. Except people aren’t salivating — they are raging. Not from their own conclusions, not from their own consideration, but from narratives supplied whole cloth.
You can tell it is a occupying narrative, because when asked about it, they have a hard time explaining why they have those conclusions in place. These are not natural thoughts. They are implanted.
You can also see the typical response to these conclusions being challenged. It’s not curiosity prompting deeper thought or discussion — it’s all defense. Which tells you something important. Whenever someone defends something and is unwilling to debate, it usually means holding on to that narrative benefits them in some way.
In the political climate, with deep polarization, there’s a strong sense of fear on both sides. Being part of a group with a specific narrative is a way to feel safer. When push comes to shove, the human brain isn’t designed to start contemplating the nuances of the situation. No, it’s designed to fight or run. It’s designed to take action, and action requires clear choices.
That’s where a great many of the US population currently sit. In fear. In fight or flight. On edge.
And you see it in conversations. They will, subtly, or in some cases not so subtly, make statements — safety bids — that offer an indication of “side”, and an opportunity to state one’s alliance.
Here’s what I mean. An example that happened to me recently, was a new couple I met. We got along famously. Similar views. Within an hour were even making plans to get-together for various hobbies and fun events.
Then the safety bid dropped.
The female of the couple made a comment, seemingly out of the blue, on President Trump’s behaviour.
And this was it. My chance, to either align with “yes, he’s terrible”, or show that I was in fact more evil than the devil himself.
Because — unfortunately — these days, from progressive liberal perspectives, there’s no middle ground anymore.
You are either with them… or you are actual Hitler.
And this couple didn’t even present as particularly progressive. Liberal sure, extreme not at all. To all intents and purposes, up to that point they seemed quite normal and sane.
But I pushed a button. Activated the program.
There’s an implanted narrative, that is pushed by most mainstream media, that there’s something is terribly wrong. Terribly wrong. All the time. In the world. Somewhere.
It’s a great scheme. Because, what do you do when you find out there’s something wrong? Well, you try to get more information! You try to feel safer, try to calm the nerves by getting more informed.
And who sells that information? News media sells it. And while they sell it, they throw in something extra, just for you, subtly suggesting something is still terribly wrong — ensuring you need to keep coming back for more.
And this mainstream media is a new thing. These are not the same corporations as they once were when print was king. This started with the internet and paywalls. This started when their printing monopoly crashed and they needed to fund all those “journalists”. A deadly combination of corporate profit drive and the convenient propaganda machine for the liberal left — mainstream media is almost all liberal leaning — made it what it is today. Mainstream news today is only “news” to liberals who are happy to update their programming. To everyone else it is clearly propaganda of a one-sided view, biased at best, weaponized at worse.
The new mainstream media found a reasonable villain in conservatives in general, but when Trump came along, well, he was just icing on that profit cake. After all, you can’t motivate people without emotion, and you can’t build emotion without a plot pitting hero to villain.
Trump is the perfect villain for every wannabe liberal hero.
He personifies the dastardly villain for many — mostly women, interestingly. Apparently, if you remove the female vote from the country and look at the states, you see nearly all red. Men vote conservative, as you can see below (based on 2018 midterms).
If you remove the men, you get a different picture, with liberals leading, as you see below.
Now, I’m not saying that women vote democrat simply due to Trump being a man, but I do think that for a significant percentage of women there’s a resistance to a man with strong traditional behaviours.
Now, that’s not politics, that’s just personal. The purpose of politicians is to do right by the country and the people. In my humble opinion, the personality of the politician should be irrelevant, so long as that politician produces results. But that’s just me, result-focused.
Yes, there’s an element of leadership providing inspiration to the young and impressionable, and of course, presenting an image on behalf of the nation.
Again, in my humble opinion, whereas the parents of those needing inspiration should be providing that inspiration themselves, the ambassador-presentation, while being important for results, is not really important beyond getting those results. I think a less-than-smooth ambassador representing a country that is effective and powerful regardless, presents a far more positive picture than the well-oiled slippery political façade that has been the ideal for many politicians over the years.
Trump does not present a well-oiled front. He is not self-preserving. He’s not doing the typical things that politicians do that says one thing, while doing another to cover their ass. He’s just doing the thing, his thing, regardless.
And because of that, he’s powerful. He’s not playing the political game. He’s not following the rules. That makes him unpredictable and therefor powerful to the external world, and unpredictable and therefor scary to the internal population. In fact, he wields that unpredictable persona to his advantage — it is intentional.
It’s a well-researched fact that while men are risk-takers, women are risk-averse. Trump is a constant risk. In fact, he might be many women’s worse nightmare. Whereas many men might see him as a strong leader that they can get behind, because strong leadership makes men feel safe and gives them a place and purpose.
I could go further out on this gender limb, and ponder if the lack of real male presence in the lives of those women-voting-against-Trump might be significant?
For example, in the 2024 presidential election, most married women voted Republican, whereas more unmarried women voted Democrat. Some feminist-bent folk might claim that those women were coerced into voting with their husbands, but you might — with less portrayal of women as weak-willed — simply say that they felt in less need of extensive state-support because the husband was providing that role already, and they felt their family was strong enough for a more independent and expensive state.
The purpose of the male — in my view — is to provide three essential things: ongoing home/family-protection, home-building and ongoing home-maintenance.
Protection is the first necessary duty for a mated couple, and arguably the most essential. Like the fire service, he provides ongoing safety that is hopefully rarely needed. Sure the firefighters, the police, the state, the government all provide first responders, but the first true responder is the man (or males) of the house. Those are the people who get between you and the person who just broke into your home. Those are the people who rush back into the burning house to grab children and the pets.
They are the risk-takers, biologically built that way for a very important reason. When men don’t enact their biological duty then they leave the female vulnerable, and looking for support and safety elsewhere.
So, when you have a man who has allowed himself to become overly soft, unfit and unready to take immediate action to defend his home and family — even though that may never be needed — then you have a man who has lost his primary function, and you likely also have a woman who feels anxious, even if she can’t put her finger on why.
Second wave feminism has, generally and unfortunately, led everyone from the 1960’s on, to believe that there are no real biological roles, no real gender differences, no real reason for men to even exist, and no real reason for women to want to be mothers.
Nothing could be more damaging to any species than to devalue and disenfranchise continued propagation, and that which protects it. It is, literal insanity.
But, as usual, I digress.
Getting back to the political scene and the couple I met.
The woman made the safety bid. She picked the villain and looked for confirmation that she was with someone who was in alliance with her. But I’m prone to speaking my truth. I could have just said, yes, yes, exactly whatever you say.
That would have smoothed the waters, make all the cows come home safely, made everything perfect. But then I’d have been lying on various levels, because I don’t think Trump, or anyone for that matter, is all bad.
Years ago, I had bought into the media narrative — I’m embarrassed to now admit. Thankfully, over time, and through a variety of sources, I spent time investigating until I finally formed opinions of my very own. That don’t quite fit.
I like to think of myself as an “eighties liberal”, which today, is automatically conservative simply due to liberals extreme movement to the far left. This well-known cartoon below describes many liberal’s experience in the last 20-30 years.
The unfortunately accurate “updated version” of this cartoon may be even more disturbing.
I may be seen now as right-of-center in my views, but I still hold those same 80’s liberal values. In these simple stick figure cartoons, there’s a center line, because that is how the far extreme’s of both sides see it, but for the average Normie population, there’s a wide expanse of what is now politically-homeless. This no-mans-land is where people who can still see logic or sense in arguments on both sides. Where debate might even be welcomed because of the opportunity for learning something.
Some of what Trump does makes a lot of sense.
That simple statement is what blew up my couple’s social visit.
The woman of the couple exploded in a tirade of insults. Literally, on the spot, with nothing more than those words. It was quite fascinating, actually, if it wasn’t so insulting. And she didn’t stop for about a straight minute. Sit quiet for a full minute. It’s quite a long time when someone is ranting — sans breath — straight into your face.
The husband sort of joined in, though only with some pre-programmed arguments. He skipped the insults part, probably because (sober) men understand not to start fights with other men — physical pain is a great learning tool. Nonetheless, they both engaged, enraged themselves, stood up, left multiple times to march off into the kitchen — this event was at a friend’s house — only to then rush back with more regurgitated propaganda. It was quite the entertaining event to watch.
After fifteen minutes of this back and forth, I had gotten in the occasional word, but that was only because I wasn’t willing to shout my counterpoints and explanations.
And to be fair, they did eventually calm down enough to reluctantly agree with some points.
In fact, I left with a offered hug and handshake from both. But, that was not going to be a friendship going forward. There’s no making friends — however seemingly compatible — with people who are constantly on a hair-trigger to meltdown mode.
And in the town I just left — shrinking into the distance in my rear-view mirror, too many barely-hinged people are on these hair-triggers for it to feel like a place where I can discuss and debate with my own original thoughts. There’s no safety there. I don’t do media-propaganda-speak.
I’ve always lived in liberal areas. Makes sense, right? But these days my experience of what is now a liberal is nothing I recognize anymore.
My experience of conservatives — real conservatives, not the stereotypes many liberals today push as an attack — is that they are real down-to-earth people living in the real world. People who are far more tolerant of different views than liberals, ironically. Liberals meanwhile are somehow are still pretending that they represent tolerance, while telling everyone they need to think and act this way, or lest they be labelled a bigot.
And to be sure, I’ve talked about this one event with the triggered couple, but I’m not talking about many other incidents of a similar nature. This isn’t a one-off, unfortunately. I only wish it were. This isn’t a knee-jerk response, but a reluctant acceptance of just where we as a society are now, today.
So, I’m trying something different.
I’m moving to a predominately conservative area.
I don’t know what to expect, but I’m willing to see what will happen. Maybe I’ll go crazy? Maybe it will be terrible? Who knows.
What I do know is that I cannot live and work in a place where I cannot state the obvious, speak my truth, debate. A place where “cancellation” is the weapon of choice. A place where I can be excluded from community. That’s not a life I want to live, constantly looking over my shoulder to see if I’ve been deemed unacceptable by someone overnight and without any chance of redemption, and losing all the things I’ve invested in.
That’s no way to live.
So, I’m homeless, for now. In a couple of days I’ll be rehoused. And we will see. I’m hopeful, but of course, experience has taught me to be cautiously optimistic.
The great thing about not being on either side is the freedom to name the bad when I see it. I don’t need to compartmentalize in order to accept something. I can accept there’s good and bad to everything, and still enjoy what I can from it.
As far as political rants in this Substack publication — I think I’m just done, for a while at least. There’s so much more that could be said, but why would I want to add more noise to the ungodly din going on already?
Besides, I think my rants are a subconscious need to be heard by a mother who was never attentive to me. If only I could make my case and be understood, I could be loved.
Alas, she is long since dead, and yet here I am, still childishly trying to make a case for being lovable.
No, I think it is time to return to beauty, serenity and hope. I need more creation, more art, more energy from the source taking the place of honour at my table. Painting — an old skill — I think will be in my future once again. Gulp. That will be a challenging vulnerable journey for me, now decades after putting down my paintbrush. Or meditations perhaps. And writing, of course — stories can draw love from the most hardened of hearts. I want to feel hopeful again. I want to envision a brighter future.
You are, of course, more than welcome to stay for these future creations, even if you initially came for the rants. And since I value both you and your opinion (regardless of your political stance!), you might want to respond to the poll below and let me know your preferences for bringing more beauty into the world!