For many years, I believed mainstream narratives about three big topics: economics, government, and society in general. Over time, however, I learned the truth about all three, and it didn’t fit with those narratives. This is what led me to become an activist for exposing the lies told about them, and becoming a Real Progressive.
As a young black teenager, I was what you would call a ‘moderate’ Republican, a label which, in the 90s, was actually closer to moderate than it is today. I believed in small government to an extent, with some social programs that would help people ‘pull themselves up by the bootstraps’. As I grew older, I found out those bootstraps don’t actually exist. The rhetoric vomited by the GOP during the early 2000s forced me to abandon them, becoming an independent thereafter.
After a few years of being an independent, I joined the Democratic party a year before the 2008 election. I voted for Obama twice, something I would later regret, but not for the reasons most would say. During his second term in office, I noticed something: things he promised weren’t happening. I started to become a little cynical and even chased ‘Illuminati’ conspiracies for a few months.
This led me to question everything I was taught about politics, economics, and other societal issues. After a while, I understood that what they taught us we a method of control, not unlike Morpheus says in the first Matrix movie. I started to read about heterodox economics, specifically Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). I started to understand the weaknesses of capitalism. So in 2015, I decided to support the Democratic (Socialist) candidate, Bernie Sanders. I felt his platform was closest to my beliefs.
At the end of the primary, sadly, the rug was pulled out from under him by the DNC. I could not force myself to support Hillary knowing how she was a corporate lapdog and closet racist while creating the scenario that led to the election of Trump. I threw my support behind Jill Stein to encourage others to throw off the shackles of the two-party system. While I did not get the candidate I supported in office, I never regretted my decision.
While I was learning about economics and the democratic socialist Senator from Vermont, I came across a fledgling group that was forming on Facebook. While I had no experience in activism, I wanted to help as best I could. My mentor, Steven Grumbine, helped me to synthesize all of the new beliefs and facts I had learned into one unifying philosophy: progressivism. While there were many rocks in the road, he and many other members of the team, including me, came together to advance the group that had become known as Real Progressives. We grew from a page on Facebook with three thousand likes to one with 118 thousand likes. We are working as hard as we can to spread macroeconomic truth using our website RealProgressivesUSA.com, Facebook, Twitter, and word of mouth.
I decided to become a Real Progressive so I could tell the truth about the things the elite don’t want us to know. I am hoping there are willing ears to listen and willing minds to think about the information we and others even better versed in economics, politics, society, etc. bring to the table. I promise that I will be a willing listener and thinker as well.