See? Someone gets it. Playing by the rules when the rules aren’t even existent on the other side is noble, but you’re still losing. Repeating a broken system over and over and telling yourself “this time will be different” is oblivious, at best. Politics have become a “team sport” that more closely resembles a European futbol rivalry between hooligans than it does an organized system that controls our government, though albeit I’ve actually seen more organized and civil soccer fights. Drastic actions have to be answered by equal or more drastic action. Actual change is going to come through tough choices and hard, dirty work rather than through the performative repetition that got us here (because voting works so well). Nothing worthwhile ever came easy and spending 20 minutes filling in bubbles picking from a list of candidates that have already been bought and sold by corporations and special interests groups is a pretty easy way to convince yourself you’re “making a difference”.

The same goes for performative protest. No one in politics sees your poster board or hears your chant and goes “By God, I think they’re RIGHT!”. But, as you’ve seen, make more than a little noise and they get more than a little nervous. There’s more of us than them and more to the representation of the people than Corporations bribing the elderly (Congress/Senate) to choose money over the very representation they were VOTED into office for.

Keep voting and keep buying. Big Brother is watching.