On Living in an Imaginary Country

It was never mine, and it's probably not yours either.

For the longest time I was convinced people were living in an imaginary country they called the United States, or sometimes America. The America in their imaginations had important if vague characteristics like “freedom,” not the largest prison population in the world The America in their imaginations had “values,” that stemmed from deity-like “founding fathers” who wrote screeds taken for scripture claiming "all lives are created equal.” This is often repeated and believed by these dreaming Americans, who conveniently ignore the fact that slavery was literally a compromise made to ratify our constitution, let alone the genocide and massive displacement that was committed before and after our founding. These people also reference the second amendment as an excuse to buy insanely dangerous weapons, living under the delusional fantasy that they may use them one day to overthrow a government with the most advanced and expensive military in the history of the world.

Aspects of this imagined America are such an elaborate fantasy that I would constantly think - they have to realize the shallowness of it all. They have to have a reckoning one day. One day they’ll realize that it’s all insane, that the facts are there, waiting to be discovered.

But after the last several years, I realize it is not their imaginary country. It’s mine. It’s the one I imagined America becoming, one akin to the great aspirations of Martin Luther King Jr, dreaming of something more. Kinder. Equitable. Thoughtful. Forward thinking. Progressive. Less violent, less warlike. Considerate. Moral. Caring.

That is not my country. It never was, and I don’t think it ever will be.

Growing up I was taught to believe certain things about how to live in the world.

• Think critically. Think carefully. Make my own decisions.

• Stick up for what I believe is right and correct and true and fair.

• Defend the less fortunate.

• Listen carefully to the point of view of others and try to learn from them.

• Help others, especially those who need it the most.

• Do not resort to violence unless absolutely necessary.

If you were brought up with the same ideals, what country does it feel like you’re living in, and who are your fellow citizens? What are we supposed to make of the election results? What are we supposed to make of the armchair quarterbacking in its wake? What sense can we make of any of it? How am I supposed to feel when the choice seemed to be between two America’s I hate equally, but one I hate much more? Do I vote for the kindler, gentler genocide? The slower impending environmental disaster? The nicer concentration camps at the border? What kind of choice is this, really?

The idea that this country, with all its capability of global harm and violence, was capable of anything more than cruelty, is absurd, and I am absurd for thinking it was capable of more. It was always my imaginary country, and I no longer live in it. I live in one of the cruelest countries on earth, all the cruler for how it celebrates itself as a bastion of ideals like freedom and exceptionalism and goodness as it hypocritically and systematically breaks down the soul of the good people at its foundation, subtly swaps slavery for prisons, exploits the poor and inoculates the wealthy, punishes protests unless they’re committed by the cruelest among us. We make enemies out of educators and exonerate enforcers who uphold our cruelty despite rampant injustices.

Why bother pointing out the hypocrisy in something like, say, a firm pro life stance married with cutting support for people who are actually alive? How much progress can we expect when the second amendment gets more radical protection than the first? What line can we draw between having the highest rate of gun deaths and suicides in the world and a military budget larger than the top ten other nations in the world? How can we expect anyone living here not to be cruel when the US provides a country who is actively committing apartheid and genocide nearly twenty billion dollars in military and economic aid this year alone?

Think about that. In 2024, we spent more money on another country killing children indiscriminately than we do caring for our own children. Billions of dollars in death. Our taxes. Both parties wanted this.

I can’t justify it anymore. I won’t. My individual moral fiber is greater than this countries, so I’m not going to walk around pretending its moral fiber is capable of matching mine anytime soon.

So I ask you to stop living in this imaginary country. Recognize it for what it is and stop thinking it can get better. You can be better. You will be better. You will help others and be there for the less fortunate, and this country will snicker from the sidelines as you do. Look out for one another, celebrate the moments of humanity all around us. But this country? It’s not yours. And your job is to keep living in it as a citizen of defiance, an ex-patriot of a land that favors wickedness over kindness, fraud instead of fairness, money over morals.

Don’t relent. Be cruel to cruelty but kind to others. Look for the humanity in everyone, but look the patriots of this cruel kingdom dead in the eyes and make sure they know you are worth more than everything they could possibly take from you.