The End Is Here

By now, if you’re following the Twitter account AltHomelandSecurity, you already know how this all started. You may have purchased the book by @DrSturg. You’ve seen the evolution of #AltGov and it’s ultimate downfall. But today, on a more personal note, I’m leaving Twitter and not looking back.

My own story is different than everyone else’s in #AltGov. I’ve shared bits and pieces over the years on Twitter or on here, but never enough to say who I was — and that was for a lot of reasons. Here is a bit of that story and what led to today.

For me, it started because I was a bit bored, a bit anxious, and right on time. I was bored after coming home from a long company event, anxious not because of the incoming administration, but because I was waiting to hear back on a different job I had just interviewed for, and happened be on Twitter when this whole thing started. It’s really that simple. I had no real intentions when creating the account and had no idea what would happen or what I would do with it. I just ran with it and that’s it.

I’ve never been a hard Democrat or a hard Republican, so the entire scenario was interesting as I was unknowingly joining a bunch of people sometimes much further left than myself. That was difficult at times because I was shouted down by some folks in the early days for some of my opinions (that were often misunderstood), but what I curated in my followers was a pretty wide group of individuals on the political spectrum, from far-left to probably as far left as some of the MAGA crowd goes. I’m pretty proud of that because I believe it means that everyone is capable with engaging with eachother. But shifting gears…

In a previous Medium post, I shared how I was continuing to actively find a role in the federal government that would help me do what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to serve my country and help the vulnerable. Whether that was Americans, folks abroad, or really anyone that needed it. The military wasn’t an option for me. Every time I talked to a recruiter through 2013, they said I wouldn’t pass medical and then avoided me. A history of (repeated) bilateral kidney stones, PTSD, and anxiety doesn’t make a good airmen. (Yes, I wanted to be in the Air Force like my uncle, RIP.)

While owning the account, I actually interviewed at three alphabet agencies in national security, failing two of them and passing another with flying colors after reworking my interview skills. I was then offered a job, accepted it, and failed my poly like so many others trying to get in. While I may talk partisan at times on social media, it was never a partisan decision nor would my decisions or skills been biased by partisanship. I’m a “follow the rule/policy” person when it comes to work and truly separate my own feelings from the work at hand. The people who say this is impossible are the people I would want far away from government. I would never change the experiences each of these processes provided me, except maybe having to fly out to Virginia on my daughter’s 3rd birthday to completely meltdown in an interview.

After my last failure in the fall of 2019, I sort of gave up on that goal as the pandemic came into our lives and I focused on how I could make my current job better. Boy, did I end up doing that in spades. As I’ve said, due to my work I have a ton of contacts in government and now they all want to join me in the work that I do — or should I say now, have done. Not only that, Twitter made me 1000% better at my job to be able to do that due to my ability to analyze a ton of information and write reports about risk or the threat environment.

But a couple years ago, during the pandemic, I decided it was time to move out of the United States. 90% of the reason is due to family. By not being able to cross borders and see family for almost 3 years, I learned the importance of being with your loved ones and experiencing life with them. Earlier in my life, due to family struggles, I wanted to be as far away from family as possible. Today, with my wife’s family taking over as my primary family, I want to be closer.

The other 10% is everything going on in this country. From the hate and the divisiveness to the lack of leadership across the country, I figured now was as good of a time as ever to leave. Sure, this is a global problem right now, but everyone follows in the steps of the United States as a world leader. I don’t like any of the steps taken since the Tea Party came into existence. This country is not safe for my young daughters and my job is to protect them through any means necessary.

With that being said, now is also the perfect time to end my usage of Twitter. With Elon Musk at the helm, I don’t believe there are any supporters of the right to free speech and the use of anonymity as firepoker against those in power. One complaint by a future administration because they are offended by someone calling them “a dimwit” now puts lives in danger due to the “outrage machine”. Numerous former Twitter employees have also told me they have deleted their own accounts due to Twitter’s new stance on user privacy.

So this is really the end for me. Many have called me an activist over the years and I just want to state that I’m not an activist because I don’t consider myself an activist. I’m more of a “Look at these things that are happening!” and then inject something off-the-cuff in a sort of nihilistic or self-deprecating manner to ease the pain of watching things slowly circle around the drain, like a toilet that keeps getting plugged and starts overflowing.

I will leave the account up, which I’m sure will eventually get deleted by Elon as he purges unused accounts or until Twitter eventually dies — whichever comes first.

To you, my over 100,000 followers, from the every day person like myself, to the journalists, celebrities, politicians, and sock puppets, I just want to say thank you. I would not have done this if you all hadn’t followed and engaged with my normal, sometimes crazy, unfunny, or weird tweets.

I do have an account on Post News @AltHomelandSec and that is the only other place I have this moniker on social media. I haven’t used it too much yet and I might use it from time to time. I have personal accounts on all the new platforms and if we are mutually following each other, I might just say hi there.

Until then, thanks for the memories.