I wasn't on social media at all until after the November 2020 election, when I saw what was happening in our country and knew that I had to "do something." I quickly realized that in order to try to connect with people, I would have to succumb to what I had managed to avoid for so long and enter the realm of hell that is Facebook.
I think I'm about done. My goal when I started this group was to fill a need that was lacking by creating a space where voters could interact with politicians and candidates in order to vet them and to hold them to account. Before I started my group, I could find no other PUBLIC forum in which voters could press for interactions with politicians and candidates. All of the political groups I found when I joined Facebook were private ones, and the admins of the groups censored, blocked, and removed anyone who rocked the boat in any way that they didn't like. So, basically, the private groups that some politicians and candidates would participate in (or that their staff would participate in on their behalf) were controlled in ways that did not hold politicians to account, but instead protected them.
And so I sought to create a space in which there was ZERO censorship. The main rule of this group was essentially to try to stay on topic with regard to posting things which would encourage discussion of things specific to politics in Nebraska. What I quickly learned is just how deep the swamp goes in our state. I learned that the reason that we never get any accountability from those whom we elect to represent us is because politicians and candidates are all very well protected, often even by some of the same people who purport to be their critics. It's honestly not any different than the goings-on that we see play out on the national stage. It's all political theater.
And one of the things I learned early on is the utter disdain that so many involved in the GOP establishment have for "we the people." If you ever thought politics was all about money, you were 100% correct. Now, I know that no one is surprised by that, but what I did find surprising was the honestly with which leaders, candidates, and elected officials within the GOP will outright state that there is no place for anyone in the political arena who doesn't arrive with a heavy purse. The condescension from leaders of the GOP and elected officials did surprise me.
I never sought to run for office. In fact, I'm still a bit shocked that I did choose to enter a state race. Many said I wasn't qualified to run for the office of attorney general, and I would agree that it sure would have been nice if someone better qualified than me had stepped up. But, finding myself with no representation in government, and watching those who currently serve as "public servants" fail to serve the public at all, I decided that running for office would be a way to raise the bar on all of the candidates by presenting myself as a candidate who did not run from questions, but who believes that running for office is a job interview, for which every candidate should have to sit for questioning.
Well, you can imagine how that went over among those in the GOP leadership! Accountability? To...the voters? Pshaw! They wanted none of that. The level of censorship that I received as a candidate was unreal. I had become known as a conservative activist for election integrity, so I was used to the media refusing to ever mention anything that I was involved in; but what I did not expect was that I would be censored by GOP leaders, both on Facebook as I would try to share information, and also banned from attending in-person candidate forums that allowed other candidates to interact with and share their message with voters. I had a message that the establishment loathed, because they believed that those who serve in our government are elites who do not have to answer to those beneath them.
The GOP shows their disdain for voters in the way that they run their campaigns. I would do my damnedest to try to put questions out on social media to press my opponent in the race, but the various GOP groups and so-called conservative groups would protect the establishment candidates whom the party leaders had selected to win. We don't even have true elections any more. They really are just (s)elections. And now, all of those in the GOP who once worked in unison to keep out all grassroots candidates (it wasn't just me they shut out) are now engaged in a heated competitive audition to see which faction will win the starring role in the next act of political theater.
From what I have seen, I believe that our government is so corrupted that the only solution that will bear any fruit is for all conservatives to break ties with a Republican Party that does not respect them. People need to also break their faith in the idea that there are still benevolent Republicans representing us who will work to secure our rights. They don't. They haven't. And they won't. I recently posted some audio from Senators Clements and Linehan. Many would say that Clements is one of our best senators. Despite once having shown incredible courage to have been the ONLY elected official in the state to stand up for Nebraskans on the issue of election integrity, he folded like a cheap suit following a public scolding from Ricketts and Evnen, whose comments on our elections amounted to "Nothing to see here." And the audio I previously shared of Senator Linehan clearly shows 1) that she speaks confidently about things that she knows nothing about, and 2) that she sneers down her nose at those who don't share her "experience" in politics. And Governor Ricketts? Well, he says the ES&S machines are here to stay.
So how the hell are we supposed to ever expect anything to change if we cannot criticize those within our government and hold them to account? Conservatives should not remain loyal to a party that demands that they bend the knee and not ask questions. If we truly want to see changes within our government, we MUST demand accountability. Show up at town halls and demand that our politicians answer to you. (Remind them that they work for you!) Write letters to your local newspaper or compose your own posts on social media to rat them out when they aren't serving you well. And when you come across this kind of information from others, share it. RAT THE BASTARDS OUT.
If you continue to fall for the narrative pushed by the GOP and those who run cover for them, there will be no accountability and nothing will change. You will quickly see who is on your side and who is not when you start to look at who it is that is making excuses for those in our government who are not serving us well. Our three branches of government at the state and federal levels have essentially morphed into one governing body which does not prioritize the securing of your rights, but instead prioritizes the protection of its members. Nothing gets done because we permit them to point the finger at each other, sending us on goose chases when it comes to trying to figure out what it is we must do to have our rights protected and upheld. The buck never stops anywhere.
There are bad actors at every level of government. Even those who speak of county-level control need to understand that our counties are by no means free of corruption. The cleanup of government has to take place at all levels. But to do so requires accountability. And that requires us to do something. You win no battles which you fail to fight, and we now find ourselves on a battlefield from which we cannot escape without either putting up a fight or surrendering. Never give up. Never surrender.
So, long story longer, I feel that I am being called to move on from monitoring this group and my Voices of Nebraska group. I wish to place my efforts where they are the most productive, and the time spent monitoring the posts of this group no longer make the cut. I've received far too many requests from people (some from people you'd never expect) asking me to censor people and block them. I've explained in previous posts that I will not. We not only need accountability from our government. We also must demand accountability of ourselves. That includes accountability for how we choose to spend our time and with whom we choose to spend it.
Also, the more that I demand accountability by trying to share posts about how those in our state are handling election integrity issues, the less likely I am to be allowed to continue to stay on Facebook anyway. The warnings are coming hard and fast now, such that when I try to share a posts from my personal page, they often disappear just as soon as I click the button to post them. The warnings are popping up that fast now. So, as if it were even possible, Facebook has gotten even suckier.
I will keep my personal page for now and will decide later whether or not to keep that one. I will continue to post on Rumble (voicesofnebraska) and on the Voices of Nebraska web site whenever I feel called to do so. I will leave the Political Rumble Forum as is and people may continue to comment, but I will not be approving any new posts. I do still plan to continue to hold politicians accountable in face-to-face interactions whenever I can, but if we want to see real change, it's going to take more of us doing it. We need enough people doing it that the GOP will no longer be able to keep up with their censorship of us. We need to push enough information into the public realm that those who wish to control the information that people have access to will no longer be able to manage it.
What happens going forward truly does depend upon the choices that we make. We get what we accept. We the people decide.