Project Ascension

Help me provide bread for my children, it costs $500. I trust your generosity and humanity.

My name is Abdelmajed. I never imagined I’d be sharing my story like this, but life in Gaza has become unbearable. I am a survivor of the war here, and in the blink of an eye, everything I once knew—my home, my safety, my community—was ripped away from me.

The war has transformed Gaza into a graveyard of broken dreams. The buildings that once stood as symbols of life and resilience are now piles of rubble. Every corner is filled with the echoes of explosions. Every moment is shrouded in uncertainty. There is no security. There is no stability. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Basic needs have become luxuries. Food is scarce. Clean water is even scarcer. Hospitals are overwhelmed and under-resourced, and there is almost no medical care to be found. Every night, families go to bed hungry, praying they’ll wake up to see another day. The cost of basic necessities has skyrocketed, and it’s become a daily battle just to survive.

I’ve seen things I never thought possible—standing in long lines for a piece of bread, rationing every drop of water, and watching my people suffer in silence. I have lost everything—my home, my safety, my dignity.

Escape from Gaza is my only hope, but it’s almost impossible without financial help. The cost of evacuation is far beyond my means, and without support, I’m trapped in a warzone with no way out.

I’m reaching out to you now, in the hopes that someone, anyone, can help. I am not asking for luxury. I am asking for a chance—just a chance—to live. A chance to escape this never-ending cycle of fear, destruction, and loss. A chance to rebuild my life somewhere safe, where I can begin again, where I can find hope once more.

Any amount you can give will help me get closer to safety. Even the smallest donation will make a difference—it could be the lifeline I need to survive. If you are unable to donate, please share my story. The more people who hear it, the better the chance that I can find the support I desperately need.

Your kindness and support mean the world to me. You’re not just helping me escape a war; you’re giving me a chance to live, to rebuild, to breathe again.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for caring.

Are things looking bad? Yes. Are they unrecoverable? No. Should we give up? No.

It should be pretty clear to anyone capable of thinking the consequences through past the shock value that dividing the country into two countries is a really bad idea. Even worse would be to chop it up based on political party lines. So let me itemize:

1) biggest issue here: if blue states left the union then red states automatically restrict and profit from travel and commerce across what we're once open lines.

2) during a political restructuring of a fractured union, the new government of blue states would not have any leadership or power or authority.

3) just because a state is red, does not make the entirety of the population red. It doesn't even mean that a majority of the population is red.

4.a) when you remove the balancing force from a political system (e.g., democrats) and leave a single party in power to do whatever the hell they want with the people left behind in red states.

4.b) allows the Republican government to hold literally every single citizen left in its borders hostage.

5) you assume that a purely Democrat government would be good. This is also wrong. We don't want Democrats to be completely in control, we need the checks and balances. Especially when just running as a Democrat is all it takes to "be a Democrat". Do you have any idea how many right wing conservatives ran and hold office as Democrats? The number is not 0. Not to mention that the actual Democrats in office now are almost entirely self-serving if they are allowed to be. The only thing keeping the Democrats in line (to the extent they even are being kept in line) is the conflict with Republican lawmakers.

6) most of the red states have the resources the country needs to function. Primarily, this means agriculture (e.g., food and textiles), but also a lot of energy generation.

7) all existing trade and political agreements with foreign nations are held with the United States, and establishing a new country means that country states from 0 and will get taken advantage of internationally.

All of your concerns are entirely valid and I'm not going to dismiss them. Thanks for educating people on the consequences of supporting my petition; I wouldn't want anyone to make a decision they don't fully understand.

I might have presented the goal of the petition badly. Sorry about that! Social skills are not my strong suit, and this is kind of my first attempt to reconnect with the world outside of my own home after years of isolating myself. I wanted to do something more than just sit around and watch while all of the checks and balances that were supposed to prevent this kind of situation in the first place have toppled like dominoes. I fully admit that this isn't a perfect solution, but anything we can do is going to come with risks.

My intention behind creating this petition is to open dialogue with state officials about holding a vote, in which the people will be the deciding factor as to whether or not individual states secede. Ultimately, it's about giving the people who didn't vote for Trump a choice in frightening times.

For many years, I've felt that the only way to solve our problems as a country would be to tear everything down and start over. I fully acknowledge that this might be wrong, that it's likely shortsighted, etc. I'm not a politician, and I don't have a degree in law, political science, or other similar disciplines... I'm trying to do some good in a world where just surviving is incredibly difficult.