2017, A Year of Ugh.

This is my final post of 2017.

2017 has been a year of, well, ugh. For some people though, it has been a year of despair. Our fellow friends and neighbors who were protected by DACA now face an even more uncertain future. They do not know whether or not they will be deported to countries that they do not know, as the United States of America is their one true home. Our Grandparents could face cuts in their Medicare and perhaps even their Social Security. Our environment is facing a great crisis and yet our government chooses to deny that fact and to pretend that there are no problems; instead they choose to exacerbate problems by building new oil pipelines and deregulating environmental protections. Millions stand to lose their health insurance coverage in the coming years. Income inequality stands to widen further and further, as the rich will get their permanent tax cuts, while the poor will keep getting the shaft.

It is hard to try and say something uplifting when this will continue, and despite whatever I could say, it won't change these things. I'm very fortunate and privileged to not be in the United States at this time. I am not facing deportation, or cuts to my health care. Nevertheless, an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us, and as a patriot, I am compelled to say something.

In 2018, we must hold onto hope; for it is the simple truth that we cannot make it through these times without hope. Hope dies last. When we have no hope, we have nothing. And though 2017 has given us many ugly setbacks, it has also given us little gifts of hope. We've got our neighbors and family angry and fired up. We've got them finally participating in the democratic process. And they're voting! We've almost flipped the Virginia House of Delegates from Republican control to Democratic Control. We've taken back the Governorship in New Jersey. And like Moses, we parted the political Red Sea in Alabama to ferry Doug Jones, a Democrat, to the Senate. I know that in the short term, these successes won't stop people from losing their health care or from being deported. Nevertheless, there is hope.

In 2018, we must also hold onto love. We must love one another. As Thomas Merton, the famous Catholic theologian once wrote, Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondly effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is it's own reward. We must continue to love one another, as we love ourselves. And we can show our love by continuing to fight the policies of the Donald Trump regime: fighting to make sure our elderly are taken care of through their dying days; fighting to ensure our friends aren't deported; fighting to save our environment; fighting to give the millennial generation (my generation) a chance at having a good life; fighting for racial equality and equal rights for all; and fighting to ensure everyone has a fair shake in our country.

Finally, we must not forget that we are on the right side of history. When our children and grandchildren learn of these tumultuous times, they will see that the man who was astonishingly elected President and the party that enabled him were the dying breaths of ignorance and irrelevance. They will eventually fade away, remembered only for what they truly were; greedy and racist. We have made it this far, and we must continue to trudge along.

The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die. -Ted Kennedy