SLC District 1 Democrat Town Hall, 3/9/26

Utah's Republicunt legislature has pulled out all the stops to thwart the will of the voters, violate the law, and deny representation to Salt Lake City's substantial Democrat population, but as of now, the non-gerrymandered map chosen by the judicial branch to comply with the law still stands, and a district with a chance of electing a Democrat to Congress still exists. I'm not a Democrat, but I'll probably vote for Democrats for the foreseeable future because Republicunts are a cancer. On Monday, the 71 Percent Coalition (a pro-Palestine group) and Black Lives Matter Utah hosted a town hall attended by all the Democrat candidates that don't suck (not Ben McAdams and Kathleen Riebe), which I'm sharing here for some reason even though I don't think anyone in Salt Lake City reads my blog. Wait, it's private? Um, okay. How silly.

Anyway, the main reason I wanted to mention it was to share a beautiful life lesson. I attended in person - actually, I arrived late, and I'm sorry if I was a little brusque toward the person who prevented me from just walking into the auditorium like I wanted. "Are you here for the town hall?" No, I thought this was a Nickelback concert. I didn't notice the signs or the huge banner that said "Town Hall" before I tried to walk in. I didn't say any of that, but it probably came through in my tone of voice when I said "Yes." So I was there, but after a while, it occurred to me that I could have stayed home until it was over and then watched it on Youtube at 2x speed, thereby giving myself more time to earn money training chatbots from home. I thought maybe my being there was a pointless waste of time.

Afterward, though, I crossed paths with Mustafa, a gentleman from Palestine who co-founded the 71 Percent Coalition. I see him at a lot of things. For some time, he's greeted me warmly and sometimes called me "Old Faithful" for my attendance at their weekly protests before the ceasfire. He gave me a keffiyeh, though he's given lots of people keffiyehs, so I'm not saying that makes me special. I and two mutual friends visited him at his car dealership a couple of months ago. For an hour, we talked about things besides Palestine or politics, and we had Arabic coffee (which it turns out I hate, but nothing personal) and some of his employee's birthday cake. He encouraged me to do more to promote my books. I was very impressed by his ability to compartmentalize and focus on everyday stuff while such horrific things are going on in his homeland. In an alternate timeline, his granddaughter could have been one of the children murdered by Israeli soldiers.

It's not like we're best friends or anything, so I wasn't expecting him to say, "It's my favorite person!" Or maybe he said, "How's my favorite person?" I've already forgotten. I'm getting old. I was like, "Really?" And he was like, "Yes, you're the only person I see at every event. You're an inspiration." Again, I've forgotten the exact words, but "You're an inspiration" is the gist, unless my brain is fabricating that to stoke my ego. I must point out that my attendance at every event isn't just a result of my dedication but also of my work schedule being literally whatever I want. But hey, I could still be doing other things with my time, so I'll take the praise anyway. Then I walked outside and talked to some other friends I've made my protesting. The beautiful life lesson, in case you missed it, is that I've made a positive impact on people even though it doesn't often feel like anything I do matters.

They asked how I like my new place, I mentioned the cockroaches, and one of them said he once lived in a place with so many roaches that the floor turned from black to white when he turned on the light, and they would swarm his face and stuff. That was probably in a third-world country on an LDS mission. It reminded me that seeing one to three cockroaches a week isn't so bad. If they ever swarm my face, I think I'll kill myself. If they ever change the color of the floor, I think I'll burn down the apartment with myself inside. Mine don't really scatter, though. They either keep going about their business or freeze like they think I can't see them if they don't move. They only run when I come after them, and they're not good at it. So far, I have a 100% kill rate - one escaped under the cupboards, but I lured it back out with a Roach Motel, so it avoided my fist only to slowly die of thirst. I still think its life had more value than an ICE agent's.

Anyway, I'm not sure which of these delightful District 1 candidates to vote for. Policy-wise, none of them stood out to me as clearly better than the others, but Michael Farrell's attitude got my attention as the night wore on. He called people in this administration "fascist freaks" and "pedophiles" and complained about "the stupidest man in the world" being elected twice. At one point, he had to restrain himself from saying "motherfucking." I think that's exactly the attitude and energy we need in addition to good policies. This administration has normalized corruption, cruelty, and evil on an astonishing scale. It all needs to be un-normalized. We're not up against legitimate politicians with valid differences of opinion, we're up against fascist freaks who should be in jail. It's refreshing to hear someone seeking office speak that truth so bluntly and not care whether it's "proper." I'll probably vote for him, but I'd be happy with any of these people. I'm just worried that we'll get McAdams or Riebe instead.