Take care of yourself, for many NREENCA Americans, including me as an Eastern European American man, this is the first time in our lives where we feel personally attacked or impacted by election results. For many others it is a new way they feel personally attacked or impacted to add to others that have caused them to feel attacked before, or so that they now feel attacked in different ways from different sides.
Because of events on the campaign trail, it seemed like Trump simply didn’t care about Ukraine and was going to give it entirely up to Putin. We really do hope and now believe we could be wrong about that; we perhaps could have filled in the blanks Trump wouldn’t share in his plan with the worst-case scenario, and if we did, we would recognize our mistake and apologize.
But, even if you are a Trump supporter, or were until we shared canvassed and shared NREENCA issues, please just take a second to empathize with the fact that we believe(d) that. Even if we are wrong as we really hope we are. Watching the election results and waiting for him to take office while believing that he said he would sell out Ukraine to suffer cultural genocide and possibly many more of the countries we care about; as Putin, who got everything he wanted turns to look for more.
If you could empathize with how that might feel, if you believed your family members, friends, personal history or family heritage, maybe even your mother tongue remaining a living language, we’re thrown in the trash by your fellow countrymen for 1% of the military budget in the form of old weapons about to be decommissioned anyway. In other words, for no benefit to them at all.
It would feel like half of your country hates you, or in the best case doesn’t care about you. And that would hurt, and make you mad, and make you really consider if/how you are still interested in keeping the people (who either genocidally hate you or don’t care enough about you the point you believe they would vote the same as a Russian Putin supporter dropped into America that does actually genocidally hate you) in your life.
Many people, of many identities and backgrounds feel attacked in that same way, many of our members feel attacked in multiples ways or even different ways by different sides.
And if that’s you and you need to take a break from politics for a while we understand.
If you canvassed but can no longer reach out to people who voted Trump to try to see if they do care about Ukraine and if not move them towards our positions, we understand.
Take as long as you need to begin on the following post-election steps and if you never can make that step, we understand.
But for those, like me, who feel better moving forward then sitting in place, who prefer to do literally anything to nothing, and who will not forgive ourselves if the worst happens and we didn’t do everything we can. We have the steps.
If not today, or tomorrow, I hope to see you there soon,
-Kristaps, Founder of the ANHA
P.S.
One thing we noticed while canvassing, is that many people were not very political and did not understand what they were voting for/against (on both sides). Most people who voted for Trump thought that they were helping Ukrainians, so either they know something we don’t, or they exist in a bubble influenced by Russian or isolationist propaganda.
We only counted two people across multiple states who actually clearly saw what we saw and believed at the time as we did that they were fucking over Ukraine.
There are some very deeply held bigotries in this country, anti-NREENCA is not one in the general population. Among certain groups we will write a wiki article about later, it still exists and is still impactful. But most Americans don’t know or understand either way.
While Russian propaganda and information war goes strong.
Our issue is really one which is winnable, and our enemy is Russian propaganda not its American victims.
Your fellow Americans don’t hate you (at least on this basis), they don’t understand the region at all and look to pundits (who are often paid directly or indirectly, such as through access) by Russia, and by politicians and businesspeople who go off of personal relationships, and who we hope are playing a long game rather than being manipulated by the lying snake Valdimir Putin as it appears from the outside.
They don’t hate you; they don’t understand you, and we can help them understand.
English
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