Inauguration Day (Prior Thoughts)

It’s Monday, January 20th and 9:31 AM in Pennsylvania. We’re about 2 hours away from Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States. Me and my friend were planning on watching it later. I’m just chilling in my room writing this blog and listening to my Type O-Negative CD and he’s probably out right now driving in the snow to take his girlfriend back to her house. We’ve been talking a lot about politics recently and basically what another Trump administration would look like. 

Yesterday was the TikTok ban, but it wasn’t really banned, it just went down for a few hours on the night of the 18th. When TikTok was down users got a message that said “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he would work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!” When TikTok turned on again there was another message saying “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S. You can continue to create, share, and discover all the things you love on TikTok.” On the App Store there’s also a message saying “Looking for TikTok? Downloads for this app are paused due to current US legal requirements.”

These messages are pretty weird and I’m definitely not the only one who noticed. It feels like a propaganda strategy. I’ve already seen people praise Trump for bringing TikTok back. It’s also giving his supporters ammunition to deny his inadequacies. TikTok itself also feels off and uncanny almost is how I’d describe it. A lot of people are saying it’s just paranoia, but I don’t think I can comfortably use the app anymore. Something about it just unsettles me now. I’m thinking of deleting it. I also feel like my algorithm changed slightly. I used to be on the left-leaning political side of TikTok and I’m still getting a little bit of that, but nowhere near as much. My fyp had a lot more random videos. It also felt like there were a lot more far-right people on my feed and it was kinda jarring, but honestly that might’ve just been because I’ve been getting used to Xiaohongshu and taking a break from other social media and I forgot how aggressive American social media is. I’m kinda thinking of switching to using mainly SpaceHey, Xiaohongshu and BlueSky instead of the mainstream social media apps. They just feel tainted now.

I’ve also heard that tomorrow Trump is going to start ordering raids in the big cities to deport people. Me and my friend were talking about how that’s probably going to cause a large increase in political violence. The political violence in the United States in general started to get bad in 2020 and just gets worse with every year. This actually takes me back to my first blog where I said how it was really important that I don’t go back to school. The political violence is why. I guess since I’m already on the topic I might as well tell that whole story now.

So it started at the end of the school day. I don’t know what day specifically it was but I think it was sometime in late February 2024, so near the end of the school year cuz we ended in May that year. We’re sitting in our last period which we called “flex period”. If you don’t know what that is it’s basically like going to a club after all your classes, but it’s during school hours. So we’re in flex and one of the kids in flex comes in and tells us that the school board is voting on a new law firm called The Independence Law Center tonight. He explains that this law firm is a Christian law firm and is known in Pennsylvania for their discriminatory practices. He tells us that he’ll be going to the meeting to voice his opinion and that we should do it as well.

I had already been keeping up with the political state of the country since 2023 so I knew this was coming eventually, but I didn’t think it’d be so soon. The meeting came and it looked like the school board was going to approve them. I started to spiral down into hopelessness and I had a really hard time being at school. I eventually reached out to the person who told us about it and asked them what all happened. He told me about the meetings and I explained to him how I knew this was coming because I read Project 2025 and had been keeping up with what was happening in other states. We actually ended up making the connections between the Independence Law Center and Project 2025 a main focus of the issue because we were able to find a lot of connections and I believe now WGAL 8 is even reporting on the connections the Independence Law Center has to Project 2025. If you’re unaware what Project 2025 is, it’s part of a series that has been going on since Ronald Reagan that is given to Republican presidents by the Heritage Foundation to serve as an outline for their administration. You would probably be able to read the entire 900 something page book to read online if you search up “Project 2025 document”, but if not, reach out to me and I can share the file I saved with you.

But anyway, he told me he was organizing a silent protest. It would take place on March 5th, and it would involve students wearing pink, blue and white to show support for the trans students who would be harmed by the Independence Law Center. This caused a big spiral. People were starting to blow up this protest. People were planning counter protests, some people were talking about starting riots, there were even some messages found of people talking about shooting up the school or attacking people. A lot of people were angry about the protest. The person who originally started the protest was being targeted a lot and I could tell that some people were beginning to connect the dots between me and him.

When the protest finally came, my parents had me stay home because they didn’t want me to be hurt if anything happened. We got an email from the school saying that they had the police show up to the school to ensure the safety of the students. I heard from my one of my other friends that a lot of people participated in the counter protest, the protest against the trans students. I don’t know exactly what happened that day, but as far as I am aware nothing too serious or violent occurred.

This caused a hard shift in the school environment though. I remember talking to the guy who originally started the protest against the ILC and he told me about some of the things people did to him. He was telling me about how someone reported him to the police, and in the middle of the night one night some officers showed up to his house. I think he told me that he went to the door with a knife because he didn’t know who would be at his house so early. I forget exactly what he told me but I think they tried to take him and his younger sibling away from the house. I believe they said it was a welfare check or something. I can’t remember the conversation 100% but it was something like that He told me that he refused to leave and eventually the officers went away.

In school I started to be harassed by other students. I think they suspected I was involved somehow, but weren’t 100% sure. I eventually started to suspect I was being stalked because it started to seem like the kids that were harassing me were starting to subtly bring things up that they definitely shouldn’t have known. I don’t like to admit it, but I started to get scared. I didn’t want these people to start coming after me or my family like they started coming after the other guy. The situation progressively got worse as we got closer to the end of the school year, but I was able to finish probably just before things got too bad. Due to the political views of the Independence Law Center, the tension at school and the political tension in the country, me and my parents decided to switch to online. I remember hearing about some instances that happened at the school this year, but no one I know goes to that school anymore so I don’t hear any first hand accounts. After Trump won the election, I had conversations with my friends and family that I will probably never be able to return to in-person school because it will be too dangerous. My parents already said that if I’m ever made to go back in person, they’ll just pull me out because they don’t think it’s safe anymore.

I know I kinda went on a tangent with this story, but I wanted to share how the political state of the country has personally affected me and since I was already on the topic, I figured I might as well tell it. The point I’m trying to get at though is that a lot of people are fearing for their futures in the United States right now and I’m expecting things be pretty bad for the next 4 years.

Me and my friend, who should be on his way home by now, have been talking about what we’re going to do to prepare for what could possibly happen. For me I will probably be blogging on here a lot more and probably talking about politics as well as slowly transitioning off mainstream social media to avoid the censorship, surveillance and propaganda we may start seeing soon. I want to start sharing my political opinions with other people again and start discussing ways we can continue to express our freedom of speech and support each other. I don’t really know what the overall purpose of writing this is. Ig I just did it to get some of my pre-inauguration thoughts out. Hopefully everything works out these next 4 years.