America is Broken
Our politicians don’t represent us and our institutions have turned their backs
“Why do you like living in Japan instead of America?”
That’s a common question I get asked, and it’s one that other immigrants in Japan are no doubt very familiar with—not only from people in Japan but also people in our home countries.
It’s not always an easy question. There are things I absolutely love about living in Japan—overall lower cost of living, public health insurance, world-class public transportation, cheap open bars, and more ramen shops than you can shake a pair of chopsticks at. There are also things I miss about America, like restaurants of every different culture just a drive away, comic conventions, and no VPN dance to watch HBO Max.
But the recent Uvalde situation really crystalized the biggest difference between living in America and living in Japan.
My daughter is about sixteen months old. Most of the time, my wife is able to stay home with her (thanks to a very generous maternity leave from her company that gives her up to two years of paid leave—another huge difference from America). Just a day before Uvalde, my wife wasn’t going to be able to watch our daughter because she had to take a driving test. So I took her to daycare before I went off to work.
Lots of thoughts were running through my head when I dropped off my daughter. At this point, she’s very attached to us. When I handed her off to the daycare teacher and started walking away, my daughter tried to push herself off the teacher because she wanted to come with me. And that’s painful to watch. And on my drive to work and in the hours until I was able to pick her up, of course I was worried about a number of different things: would she be okay? Would she get along with the other kids? Are these teachers attentive? Will she cause any trouble?
But the one thought that never entered my mind, the thought that was absolutely unthinkable?
“Will she still be alive when I pick her up?”
I didn’t realize it before, but that thought is a privilege I have in Japan that I would not have in America. Every day, when parents all across America drop off their kids at school or watch them get on the bus, they have that worry.
This is not normal.
I cannot stress that enough.
Active shooter drills are not normal.
Bulletproof backpacks are not normal.
Discussions about arming teachers are not normal.
None of this is normal.
Nor should it be.
When your kid goes to school, every parent should be safe and secure in the knowledge that this is not the last time you will see them alive. This is not the price of living in a democracy, because no parent in any other democracy has this fear. American parents are in a disturbingly unique position.
American voters overwhelmingly agree there needs to be more laws and restrictions on gun ownership. They quibble on the details, but they overwhelmingly agree that the status quo is utterly insane.
The usual excuses
I don’t want to hear any of this bullshit about “the problem is mental illness.” You want to talk about mental illness? Okay, let’s talk about mental illness. Mental health care in Japan fucking sucks. One of my former students is a psychiatrist and he would tell me all about the numerous problems with mental health care in Japan. I’ve had friends here who struggle with mental illness and the treatment was essentially “throw a bunch of pills down their throat and hope the problem goes away.”
There is a far better understanding of mental illness and far more effective treatments in America. The availability and the cost are issues that definitely need to be addressed, but by and large, America is better at mental health care than Japan.
And yet, Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun violence in the entire world while America has one of the highest. So the problem is not mental health.
The problem also isn’t school security. There are no armed guards at schools in Japan. No metal detectors, no secure entrances, none of that. And yet, in 2022 there have been 0 school shootings in Japan while there have been 27 in America.
The reason why? Gun control laws that are so strict, even the goddamn yakuza are afraid to pack heat.
We need change
Not only in the gun laws, but we need changes at every level of American society. America is at a crisis point. When 70–90% of Americans agree on a policy change, lawmakers should have no problem changing policy. To put that kind of agreement into context, the last time a presidential candidate won over 70% of the popular vote was James Monroe in 1820.
No presidential candidate in any of our lifetimes has ever enjoyed the kind of popular support that exists for changing gun laws.
And yet, it remains an intractable problem. Republicans refuse to entertain even the smallest of changes because they’ve been bought and paid for by a special interest group that represents a fraction of the population.
As for the Democrats? They’re stymied by feckless, cowardly leadership that’s so mired in focus group bullshit and civility politics that they refuse to do what’s necessary. More Democrats need to be doing what Ruben Gallego and Beto O’Rourke have done—call out the Republican obstruction by name. Go to their press conferences and call them out on television.
Nothing is going to happen by playing nice with these assholes. We need candidates who have the stones to stand up for what more than 70% of Americans agree with. And that means Democratic leadership needs to start standing behind candidates who support gun control, not recording robocalls for fake Democrats who receive A-ratings from the NRA.
In America, there are two political parties. One party is composed of sociopaths who accept campaign funds drenched in the blood of children. The other is too busy incompetently begging to be liked by the enemy that they refuse to do anything of substance.
No, Speaker Pelosi, we do not need a strong Republican Party. We need a strong Democratic Party.
No, President Biden, we do not need to fund a police force that waits around as children are being slaughtered.
Civility politics must die
Change will not happen by having polite conversations with sociopaths who care more about their campaign contributions than representing their constituents.
Ted Cruz stormed off from a Sky News interview at a candlelit vigil. Here’s my question—what the fuck was Ted Cruz even doing at that vigil? If I were at that vigil, Cruz wouldn’t have been able to storm off—he’d have to be wheeled out on a stretcher. Why did he feel he could show up at a vigil for children that his psychotic policies helped kill?
Ted Cruz should have been utterly terrified to show up at that vigil. He should be shitting his pants about speaking at the NRA’s upcoming convention. Every single politician that refuses to do fuck-all about gun violence should be living in fear right now of going out in public. They need to be confronted and shouted down every time they step outside their doors. They need to have protestors camping out on their front lawns.
Democrats need to take off the fucking gloves. Stop passing laws to protect corrupt Supreme Court justices from having to face protestors, stop begging Republicans for action. Stop defending pro-NRA candidates!
If we’re going to have change, then it’s time to put down civility politics and to start taking action against these sociopaths.
I’m fucking tired of this shit. And if you’re not, then ask yourself why.
