…And the Political Is Personal!
“What’s past is prologue” — William Shakespeare
I’m a person of a certain age. It’s my favorite euphemism to describe my baby boomer status and lived experience. I’m 76-years-old, living my eighth decade. As I’ve leaned into grief and said goodbye to colleagues, friends, and family who have died, I’ve both reminisced about our shared lived experiences and reflected on the cycles of life, recognizing, “What’s past is prologue,” and “What goes around, comes around.” I ask this question, “Have we learned from our experiences, or are we doomed to repeat them?”
In my lifetime, I’ve lived through these historical (and hysterical events) including the Red Scare, Lavender Scare, AIDS Epidemic, Rainbow Scare, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and countless conspiracies (Q-ANON, Pizzagate, election conspiracies during both of Trump’s terms as President, and the list goes on). This is the world we now live in.
Full disclosure: This is an opinion piece. I consider myself a citizen journalist as I write and reflect on my life.The Backstory
As a second-wave feminist, the personal is political was the rallying cry inspired by Feminist Consciousness-Raising (C-R) in the late 1960s and early 1970s, “…originated within the radical wing of the second-wave women’s liberation movement in the United States, specifically through groups like New York Radical Women. It emerged as a method to analyze personal experiences of sexism to understand patriarchal oppression, adopting the “telling it like it is” approach from the Civil Rights movement.” — National Women’s Liberation
Feminist Consciousness-Raising Groups (C-R) beginning in the late 1960s.
During the early 1970s, I was a young married woman. My husband and I met at college, dropped out, became active in social justice issues, lived communally for a time as hippies, and yes, we experimented with drugs until addiction began taking hold of our friends and contemporaries. We decided to find jobs and live as members of the progressive, blue-collar, working-class.
We later moved to Madison, Wisconsin. I returned to the university, dropped out again, and I soon became involved in the feminist movement, including NOW (National Organization for Women), and active in facilitating Feminist-Consciousness Raising (C-R) groups, eventually training facilitators statewide regionally, and nationally for NOW.
I later separated from my husband, came out as a lesbian, entered treatment and recovery from alcoholism, and became a writer by writing, chronicling my lived experience.
The past few years, as women, children, and marginalized communities have had their civil rights and protections threatened or taken away (for some, never enforced), as a citizen journalist and observer of culture and politics, I ask the following questions:
- Why is this happening now?
- Who benefits, who loses?
- What is the cost to society?
- How does this impact the future?
- What can we do about it today?
I hope to answer, or in the very least, address the questions from the lens of the personal is political, and the political is personal. Let’s begin with the present, look back at the past, and take action for the future.
Dateline 4/26/2026
On Saturday, April 25, 2026, I watched the W.H. Correspondents’ Dinner live, toggling between C-Span, CNN, and MS Now. As I often have during the last 15 years since I began posting on social media and 13 years blogging on Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! I share stories of my lived experiences, comment, and editorialize about the culture and politics of our time, hoping to find an audience that resonates with my stories or commentary.
As I live-streamed the event, I posted on Facebook. Friends commented in response. Soon I was surprised by the opinions shared by friends, for the most part, who I considered to be like-minded. A trend began. Some of my posts, live as it was unfolding, turned out to be incorrect as reported. I did my best to timely update posts, so I didn’t add to the misinformation. I’m accustomed to seeing conspiracy theories posted on social media from Trump and the MAGA right wing, yet now I was witnessing a proliferation of left-wing commentary and conspiracies. I posted the following on Facebook:
Security at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, 4/25/26
Day After Thoughts: First, I’m concerned that it only took minutes for people to speculate that the W.H. Correspondents’ Dinner shooting last night was staged, a conspiracy to promote Trump’s budget-bloated golden ballroom, and/or to portray Trump as both victim and hero.
Instead, IMO, it’s a sign of the times, a barometer of the political divide, evidence of the proliferation of guns, an increase in untreated mental health, and what happens when the Freedom of the Press, the First Amendment, and Democracy are endangered. My biggest concern is this will play into Trump’s hands and we will see more military and police intervention in our lives and threats to our personal freedoms and civil rights. Let’s take action in the mid-term elections, vote for candidates in all levels of government and protect and ensure that, “… a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” —Abraham Lincoln.
Why is this happening now?
We are living in a digital age where news, entertainment, and dissemination of conspiracies, enabled by commerce-driven algorithms and YouTube and Instagram influencers, make it nearly impossible to parse the truth. It requires vetting and critical judgement, rather than an emotional knee jerk response.
The conservative-liberal, right-left divide has broadened. Social media, economic, and power disparities, often driven by race, gender, and privilege, supported by a capitalist engine, find most people gathering information in echo chambers from like-minded sources. The past 25 years, of changing political discourse, is evidence of this trend.
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner of the past week and both the personal and political response to the event is clear evidence of this trend.
Who benefits, who loses?
The following is a generalization and I’m aware there are always exceptions and people who overcome their given status. For the most part, people who benefit from the dominant culture and current political environment are predominately white, male, older, conservative, Christian, and of an upper middle-class economic status. Those who represent us in government, again, reflect those demographics.
People who lose their civil rights, including freedom of speech and assembly, justice in the courts, access to healthcare and the elections, equal pay for equal work, body autonomy and reproductive freedom, protection from sexual and domestic violence, are most often statistically children, women, nonwhite, non-Christian, LGBTQ+, of immigrant status, and members of the lower to middle-class. During the past 10 years this has worsened rather than improved.
Access to the polls and equitable representation
Some of the civil right gains made in the 1960s and 1970s have slowly been dismantled and overturned by state and federal legislation, in the courts, and under Trump by Executive Orders with limited oversight. The abortion and reproduction rights gained in the 1970s has now been overturned. There was gay hysteria during the AIDS epidemic when first, gay men, sexually active men and women, and IV drug users were demonized.
What is the cost to society?
Power, privilege, and wealth now reside in a diminishing, yet more powerful minority, especially under both Trump’s terms as POTUS. When this happens, special interests derive their power, wealth, and privilege at the cost of the many, who struggle economically, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
When this happens, remember “What’s past is prologue,” we lose equal representation under the law, access to power, and ability to speak truth to power. The rights, which we fought tirelessly for since post-World War II, we’re now losing. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the constitution was never ratified, opposed tirelessly by conservatives and the religious Christian right which ultimately led to Christian Nationalism, now a threat to our democracy, defined as follows:
“Christian nationalism is an ideology that espouses a form of religious nationalism that focuses on promoting the Christian views of its followers in order to achieve prominence or dominance in political, cultural, and social life.” — Wikipedia
The rights of BIPOC, immigrant, LGBTQ+, and non-Christian communities, never achieved equity, the same can be said for a majority — women —who’ve been treated historically like a minority. Remember, “Women hold up half the sky.” — Mao Zedong
Feminist peaceful protest during the 1970s
What we’ve witnessed is the feminist rallying cry of the late 1960s, “The personal is political” has been supplanted by “The political is personal,” laws and Supreme Court rulings targeting communities who are marginalized by those who wield power and privilege.
One of the costs to society, the citizens of our nation and the world, is that as the mainstream and independent media, and journalists are silenced by those in power, and social media promotes commerce-driven misinformation and conspiracies. It’s dividing and distancing people from the right and the left, who for the most part distrust mainstream media, and seek information in the echo chambers that resonate with their beliefs and fears. Conspiracies thrive in that environment, and people most impacted, lose rights and power.
How does this impact the future?
As power and privilege are centralized in a minority, government no longer serves its citizens, protects democracy, and observes the constitution. Instead, it dismantles civil rights, enriches corporations and those in power, rather than empower the masses.
Again, let me restate, marginalized communities suffer the most. The cost of healthcare, childcare, affordable housing, and hope of economic opportunity become more out of reach for most Americans. Add the impact of the high-cost of higher education, AI on entry-level jobs, threats to body autonomy and reproductive rights, add the current cost of wars and incursions in the Middle East, Ukraine, plus South and Central America, the taxpaying lower and middle class are bearing the burden of these costs. Instead, corporations, as evidence by the stock market, the profits of oil companies, health insurance providers, and graft and of insider trading by government officials and their friends, they’re thriving benefiting stockholders and investors.
Most taxpayers are paying more, and receiving less, as government services diminish, including ease of access to services. Not only is there a divide of conservative-liberal, and right-left, now there’s an increasing generational and gender divide. The baby boomer generation is now facing insurmountable costs for healthcare as they age, while the younger generations are facing roadblocks to economic opportunity and employment, and their futures are more at risk as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid become insolvent.
Some men from all generations and economic strata express their fears that they are becoming marginalized, when in fact, the rights of women, and marginalized communities are losing rights, and in some cases, their lives.
What can we do about it today?
As I write, it’s May Day. The background of this day, “…originated from ancient European spring festivals, such as Beltane, celebrating fertility and the changing seasons with bonfires and maypoles. It was transformed into International Workers’ Day to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago, where workers striking for an eight-hour workday faced violent police repression.”
“What’s past is prologue.”
May Day Strong!
Today, May Day Strong! “It’s Workers Over Billionaires! On May 1, 2026, workers, students, and families rally, march, and take action across the country to demand a nation that puts workers over billionaires, with many refusing business as usual through No School. No Work. No Shopping.”
It’s our responsibility as citizens to find our voices, speak truth to power, protest nonviolently, communicate with elected officials, and protect the most vulnerable from harm, including removing illegal guns and assault weapons from the streets, protect women, children, BIPOC, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ communities from domestic, sexual, and gun violence. The political feels very personal.
Returning to the first question I posed, “We are living in a digital age where news, entertainment, and dissemination of conspiracies, enabled by commerce-driven algorithms and YouTube and Instagram influencers, make it nearly impossible to parse the truth. It requires vetting and critical judgement, rather than an emotional knee jerk response.”
We also need to cross the political divide, listen to each other, debate compassionately and empathetically, rather than divisively. To move forward out of the morass, we need build bridges and coalesce rather than demonize and blame each other. Remember, “The personal is political.”
Lastly, and most important, we need to vote in every election and in every level of government. It’s both our right and responsibility!
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Self-Care During Uncertain Times
Meditations on Mortality: Grief & Gratitude
Celebrating a Decade of Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Labor Day: May Day in September
Additional Reading on the Topic
The Ballroom Truthers Have a Theory
Redstockings Archives for Action
Lesbianism is made invisible through culty, “queer” expectations