The United States is unrecognizable today. Everything we old timers were taught to believe in has become a lie.
March 2026
Yet more tragedy in our country.
I thought things were bad in 2025. But 2026 has brought more daily mass shootings and mayhem aimed at our most vulnerable population, our children.
Why is it okay that we have to have armed guards at churches and shooter drills in elementary schools? Why is it okay for people with mental illness to buy guns bigger than those the police have? Why is it okay for our troops to harass American citizens on our own soil? Why is it okay to use social media to harass young people to suicide? Why is nobody doing anything about all this?
Daily people are snatched off the street and deported without due process by untrained ICE agents. Daily we are subjected to troops deployed in our cities for some fantasy crime spree. Daily our seniors and those who are sick have to question when they will lose their homes or access to doctors. Daily we are subjected to our government resources being used to exercise personal vendettas, or romantic whims of officials who can’t spell the constitution, much less know what it says.
The entire presidential cabinet doesn’t just seem incompetent at their jobs. It appears they don’t even know what their jobs are or what the department they run was created to do.
Daily we are under the whims of a convicted felon with marginal intelligence and decreasing mental faculties. Daily we are fed carefully curated lies under the guise of the news.
And now, we’re faced with not only a global web of trafficking minors but a cover-up precipitated by the very agency created to deal with these atrocities.
The United States is unrecognizable today.
photo illustration
Everything we old timers were taught to believe in has become a lie.
There is no such thing as democracy. There is no such thing as human rights. The present government has no reference point for the people who have built this country. There is no such thing as the voice of the people.
Those voices are being systematically silenced through force, one city, one sly move at a time.
How could this happen? How can a world power become a world public laughing stock?
It just takes apathy. We have become so arrogant and lazy that we assume the paid-for lies from politicians can’t really change anything. Good or bad.
Too many of us have believed the self-serving lies of a pretend oligarch, thinking that if it gets too bad, someone will stop him.
Who do we think that someone could possibly be?
The truth is that the only people who can stop the madness is us. We, the people of the United States, are the only power on earth that can turn the tide of this hypocrisy. We are the only voices big enough, loud enough, powerful enough to stop the lunacy.
But we are afraid, unsure, apathetic or just plain stupid. I honestly can’t figure out which.
I grew up saluting the flag. Reciting the pledge of allegiance to begin school every day.
As a child I didn’t understand what it meant to be a citizen of the most amazing country in the world. Not amazing because it was first in technology. Not amazing because it had the fiercest army. Not amazing because it controlled the world economy. It was amazing because we represented a freedom most of our world didn’t have.
We had the right of free speech. We were guaranteed by our Constitution of our rights as citizens. We had laws to uphold our constitution. No one was above the law and we were assured of that.
But today, we the people have put a fool in office, and our democracy is falling apart. If you didn’t vote for him, that doesn’t make you less guilty. Apathy and the arrogance—thinking your voice doesn’t have any power—is how this situation came to be.
And that’s also how it continues to grow. Probably 20% of Americans side with this present government. Where are the other 80%? That’s what I want to know. When are we going to wake up and realize that the only help we have is ourselves. If not, there is more tragedy to come. Daily.
And next time it may be your city, your family, your child, your job, your healthcare, your home, your groceries, your life.
We need to stand up and say NO! Contact your elected representatives and congressmen. Tell them if they want your vote, they better represent your rights. The possibility of losing their overpaid jobs will definitely get their attention.
Don’t neglect your freedom of speech while you still have it.
By the time someone figures out that the words I’m saying are true, it might be too late. Not too late for “them,” but too late for me. Too late for us.
Too late for YOU!
G. Marshall Brooks can be reached at msgrmb@yahoo.com. Her views are her own, and don’t necessarily align with the members of The Reporters Inc.’s Board of Directors and advisory committee members.
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G. Marshall-Brooks
