GOD BLESS AMERICA

Americans today love to pretend they're oppressed, bless their hearts. They have no idea what oppression is.

Today, I had a conversation with a friend in another country who is a refugee from a dictatorship.

No, not an imaginary “dictatorship” like some people say America is today, but an actual dictatorship.

A country with an oppressive regime run by an illegitimate tyrant who drove the country into abject poverty and created an international humanitarian disaster.

A police state where cops show up in the middle of the night, arrest people they don’t like without a warrant, imprison them without a trial, and execute them without a conviction.

In other words, this person’s home country is a smoldering crater of failure, poverty, violent authoritarianism, and repression, and it’s all run by a murderous egomaniac who illegally occupies the seat of power, without legitimate elections.

It’s always helpful to me to talk to people from other countries: it puts the petty infighting among Americans in perspective.

It’s good for me—and others—to be reminded that in the 21st century, we still have actual dictatorships, still to this day, which makes me roll my eyes at all the performative, hyperbolic screeching of latte-sipping middle-income folks wearing gold rings and talking on iPhones.

You know the type: folks who drive their $50,000 SUVs to political rallies to hold “No Kings” signs in a wealthy nation that allows them to do this without being arrested or imprisoned, which is downright insulting to people like my friend’s family members who are still—STILL—living in catastrophic poverty and economic devastation, and where dissent is illegal and could be a death sentence.

You don’t want to live there. My friend, who was born there, doesn’t want to live there. It’s a hellhole where the disaster is man-made, where the water isn’t safe to drink, the electricity isn’t stable, and the chaos and violence are as bad as a warzone.

Anyway, that’s not my point. My point is this:

I haven’t posted almost anything of substance to Facebook for the 10 years I’ve had an account. Aside from occasional family photos, reflections on life memories, and snapshots of concerts I’ve been to, I’ve been almost entirely silent.

Earlier this year, I wondered why I even had a Facebook account. I looked at the list of people I’m connected to, and saw lots of people I like and care about, but thought, “It’s all so fake—I never actually interact with any of them.”

In August, I added “delete my Facebook account” to my to-do list. But for some reason, I never got around to it.

Then, in September, a political assassination happened to a young man who was a Christian, a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, and a conservative, just like me.

He looked like me. He believed like me. He lived like me.

And I watched as people I knew—not random keyboard warriors raging in their parents’ basements or Russian bots on Twitter—people I’ve hugged, whose homes I’ve been to, and whose hands I’ve shaken, celebrate his death.

I wondered, for the first time in my life:

“Do these people want to kill me, too?”

If I take them by their words, it appears that these folks, whose children I know, whose concerts I’ve attended, and whose GoFundMes I’ve supported, actually want to see me dead.

So, after seeing a flurry of these appalling responses to Charlie Kirk’s murder, I felt the need to say something. I broke nearly 10 years of political silence on Facebook to say something.

I didn’t plan it out: I just sat down with my laptop at the dinner table on a Sunday at midnight and wrote what was on my heart. I thought, “Some people will hate this. Too bad. I’m going to delete my account anyway, so who cares?” I said what I felt like saying, hit “post,” then went to bed.

I had no idea what to expect. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t go viral, or cause a scandal or anything, but I was pretty sure some people would get mad.

The results weren’t dramatic, but they were a bit different from what I expected.

First, in a huge surprise, 15 people unfriended me instantly. That was… shocking. I was naive to think that people can disagree and still be friends, but I suppose all this proved to me was that these people who were my “friends” on Facebook really aren’t friends at all.

Second, I got emails, phone calls, and text messages from people OFFLINE that were supportive. They were not necessarily from the people I expected. Some told me, “I agree with you.” Some said, “Thank you for saying that.”

Third, I’ve gotten a few notes from people since then saying, “I like what you have to say, even if I don’t fully agree with you. Keep sharing.”

That last result is why I haven’t deleted my account after all, and have started writing again after a decade of radio silence.

I created my Facebook account in 2015, so for literally ten years, I said nothing.

I didn’t want to rock the boat, get canceled, boycotted, or start flame wars online. I didn’t want to say something true and have the pronoun police accuse me of using “non-inclusive” language or whatever else the L’indignation du jour was.

Bad news would come and go, and I’d watch as my friends argued angrily in my Facebook feed, but I never said anything. I just took it all in, like a two-way mirror: I could see them, but they couldn’t see me.

I bit my tongue throughout the ENTIRE 2016 election cycle. That was really, REALLY hard to do. The weirdest election of my lifetime came and went, and I tried not to utter a single word about it online, at all, ever, to anyone. (And no, I didn’t even tell anyone who I voted for.)

I will never forget election night 2016: I was singing in an opera in Denver. After it was over and we broke from our final curtain call, we all walked backstage, and I heard someone shout:

“GUESS WHAT, EVERYBODY, WE JUST ELECTED A RACIST FOR A PRESIDENT!”

I cringed at the melodramatic and historically tone-deaf comment, but I remained mum.

Then I walked into the lobby of the opera house and saw people standing around, silently. It was eerie: some of them looked shellshocked, like zombies. Their faces were pale and sullen.

I saw a grown man crying.

Literally sobbing, with tears, making loud wailing sounds like in a movie.

Other people came and hugged him. Other people stood around quietly, almost spooked, like they were at a funeral and didn’t know what to do or say. It was like I walked into the scene of a car crash, but there was no car, and no crash.

Today, as I spoke to my non-American friend, I realized something: I’m okay with saying things now. I think the straw that broke the camel’s back wasn’t the 2016 election, or the 2020 election, or even politics at all: it was when my little brother died suddenly a few years ago.

Death changes people in ways they can’t completely understand or explain.

When Riley died, parts of me died too. Some were good parts that I mourn the loss of, but some were bad parts too: there were cowardly parts of me that said, “Don’t offend anyone… don’t say anything that will make people upset.”

Today, that part of me is as dead and gone as my brother is.

In some way I can’t fully comprehend, his death made me realize that: life is short. It’s precious. It’s important. It’s worth sharing your feelings. It’s worth saying what you feel like saying.

No amount of neighbors with “COEXIST” or “Be Kind” bumper stickers can make me shut up. I’m here, I care, I have thoughts, and I’m going to share them. I’ve kept my mouth shut for far too long, and I regret that.

I don’t post ragebait. I don’t intentionally provoke people (well, not usually). I believe that we’re all doing our best, trying to do what’s right and make sense of this world.

Sometimes (i.e., “No Kings Day”) I will heap a double or triple scoop of snark on people who deserve a sound mocking, but overall, I’m here to make friends. I don’t wish ill on ANY of those people, even when I strenuously disagree with them.

I love and care about everyone I’m connected to in real life and online. I wouldn’t have “friended” them in the first place if I didn’t.

I assume—and hope—that this is also what other people want. If that’s not the case, they are free to unfriend me, like those initial people already did.

But just know this: I won’t do that.

We may disagree on some things, or a lot of things, but I won’t cancel you, disconnect from you, block you, or unfriend you (except in extreme circumstances).

If we can’t be friends, that’s your choice. Not mine. I welcome differing opinions. I don’t mind disagreement. But I can’t understand disconnecting over viewpoints.

Praise God that I live in a country where this is possible.

Praise God that my friend was able to escape a murderous regime and start a new life in a free country.

Praise God that the worst people are doing (currently) is disconnecting online from the people they disagree with.

A note on the featured photo: I took this photo at a Miami Dolphins game when I spent a week in Little Havana, Florida. I went to my first-ever NFL game with a friend from Honduras. He’s not the friend I mention above, but he does know what life under a dictatorship looks like. Watching him drink beer and cheer at an American football game in a city built by refugees who fled communist Cuba was a life-changing experience.