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This is amazing and bizarre all at once

Why I feel the Bern, part1

I used to have a strongly libertarian point of view. For a couple of decades this was the only ideology that really made sense to me, and seem fair. Unfortunately it made me blind to many of the existing problems for others in this country.

Now I was never so foolish as to believe that racism didn't exist, but it wasn't until the death of Eric Garner that I really started to empathize. I had a real what the fuck moment and started thinking 'what if that had been me?' That terrified me to no end and I started looking into other issues. In a very short time I learned that we as a country have a big damn problem with treating those we think of as others as equals.

There was also this nagging question. What if I never make it as more than a janitor? I like my job for a variety of reasons and have repeatedly said I won't leave without giving my bosses the chance to make a better offer, but what if? I actually make more than Hillary Clinton's proposed minimum wage of $12 per hour and I have nothing in savings. I do have an IRA, but I can only afford 0.5% more than my employers match on it. I have health insurance, but I can't afford to go to the doctor because of the deductible. I don't own a car but I do have lots of student debt that often I have to skip paying to buy groceries. I can't even leave my current apartment because my credit is so bad, because of missed student loan payments, no one will rent to me and my girlfriend.

I would like to be more than a janitor, but the writing market is really tight and it could be years before I might be able to support myself in that kind of career, if ever. I can't go back to school until my current debt is paid and that could be ten or twenty years at this rate. Then I'm in my 50s and how much impact in the fields of study I am interested in am I going to really have before I die or retire. Men in my family don't tend to make it to their 80s, so I'd have maybe 10 years in the field, a ton of debt, and still no house.

Kids aren't financially viable for us either and we're in our mid thirties. At this point we've had to give up on the idea of raising a family. Since paid family leave isn't really a thing in our part of the country, we can't afford to take the time off from work. Not to mention that diapers and other necessities of childcare are simply out of our reach. We both work at least 40 hours a week making roughly 12 dollars an hour and we cannot afford for anything to go wrong much less kids. How is that fair, and achieving the American dream?

I know I am not as bad off as many people in this country and I have the advantage of being a white male, but if I can't do better than this then how the fuck can anyone really make it? I know people do, but it's rare and getting rarer every year the way things are going.