I very rarely blog about politics. I had my posts for today and Friday all beautifully queued up and ready to go. But then the election results happened and I couldn’t bear to keep posting as per usual this week. I let my Wednesday post go live yesterday because my brain was too befuddled and confused to pull it together to cling to some semi-coherent mantra to get me through the day. I’ll return to regularly scheduled content on Monday, but for now, this:
My gut reaction is to say: this is not my America. This is not the country I love. But the very sad truth is that it is.
Trump is something that we all created. Both Democrats and Republicans are equally culpable. And in this way, today, we are united: we have to own up to the fact that we fed hate and racism and misogyny, and as history has taught us, we reap what we sow.
I believe in love. I believe in kindness and generosity and extending a helping hand to your fellow man. I believe in shattering glass ceilings. I believe in equal rights for everyone regardless of race, nationality, religion, gender or sexual orientation. I believe in affordable healthcare.
I believe that a group of Americans felt threatened and scared and reacted by voting for someone that they might have felt distasteful and unqualified at any other time. I don’t think Trump was the answer but I woke up on the wrong side of the views of the electoral majority. I can almost rationalise a sense of disappointment in the establishment too; my original candidate was Bernie.
To fellow liberals, it is okay to mourn, to be in denial, to grieve. And it’s okay to be angry at ourselves for allowing this to happen. Angry that America will have a President who sexually assaults women, mocks the disabled, and demonises people on their race and ethnicity. Angry that America will have a Vice President who believes that conversion therapy – something that has been proved to be inhumane – can cure homosexuality. Or that “I long for the day that Roe v. Wade is sent to the ash heap of history” and wants to defund Planned Parenthood.
I am allowed to be angry because this is a frightening, vengeful, territory that we’ve just entered into. I am allowed to be angry because I want to hold all my loved ones and protect them and promise them that they will still be able to love who they want, regardless of gender; I’d want to tell them that we will overcome institutionalised racism; that rape culture will be a thing of the past; that I can tell my future daughter that she can be president if she wants and not just be paying lip service to a dream; that an American can worship the God that they want; that they can go to the doctor if they need, but I can’t. I can’t. And I will never stop being angry about that. Our fellow citizens aren’t being sore losers. We have huge groups of people who fear for not only their constitutional rights but their lives. We must stand up for marginalised Americans. We have to be braver than we ever thought we’d have to be.
At the moment, I don’t know how to bridge this divide. The pessimist in me doesn’t currently see a way to permanently heal the deep division in the country. But we have to try. I owe it to my country to try to love it, to listen to those I disagree with, to rationalise and to engage. No matter what side of the aisle your beliefs fall on, it’s clear that something is broken in America. Trump’s campaign was the symptom, not the disease.
We cannot let ourselves forget this feeling. We have to fight for a better future where we are more politically engaged at every level. This isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning.
What can you do right now? Well here are some helpful tips.
“The bleak times that lie ahead will offer us a rare time of complete moral clarity. Liberal democracy has prevailed against the odds before. It is the civic duty of us all to do everything we can so that it might prevail again.” – From “How to Preserve the Ideals of Liberal Democracy” by Yascha Mounk in Slate. (I highly recommend reading the whole article.)
