I remember talking to my mother once about 9/11. I tried calling her that day but couldn’t get a hold of her until later. I told her about my fears for the future, that my country was under attack, and that people I know might die. She laughed. This surprised me. She said that after Korea, Vietnam, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, she wasn’t too worried about a couple of buildings,
“You had a time like Vietnam, or the Cuban Missile Crisis, where it seemed the entire planet could go at any second. After that, terrorism seems like a small problem.”
I never understood her answer, not really, until this year. Even in the dark days of the 80’s, nuclear war seemed just too crazy to me as a kid. It didn’t really scare me until high school, but then things like perestroika and glasnost pushed it to the side.
I have never been as afraid for my country as I am right now. I’ve never been as afraid for my family and children as I am right now. I started a new anti-anxiety medicine this week, and it might be the only thing holding me together.
In the next 24 hours, we’re holding an election that is going to decide the fate of our country. I say this not as hyperbole, but as grim reality. We have a government that cares not if we die of a plague spreading faster than ever. The same government wants to get rid of my family’s health insurance, make my daughters prisoners of their gender, and tear loving families apart at an even bigger scale than they already have.
What upsets me the most are not the people angry about this. It is the people who don’t think this might be the end of this country. They’ve never been taught history or cared to learn. And they are the ones who will be just fine with the country going bye bye, until it’s their own family dead in the ditch.
There’s a photo making the rounds of laughing happy people during World War II. It seems completely normal until you’re told they’re the staff from a concentration camp. I used to think that people like that didn’t exist anymore. That we had advanced beyond that.
Then I started working again. And I met those people. They are everywhere. I have co-workers who tell me Covid-19 is going to disappear after Wednesday. That say things like “gay parents shouldn’t be able to adopt.” I’m about 90 percent one of them has tomorrow off to harass people at the polls.
It makes me want to scream at them, but it won’t matter. You try reasoning with people who never voted until Trump, and make over 50K a year. I wish you well. I have ibuprofen for when you’re done.
And I am not in the sticks, despite what my co-workers seem to think. I can be to the airport from my house in twenty minutes, even faster if my wife is driving. But I talk to these people, and feel like I’m back in the middle of Minnesota in the 1970’s.
You ever seen the movie Clerks2? That scene where Jay keeps using all types of racial slurs, just because he doesn’t know any better? And the more Jay keeps talking, the more insane and racist he sounds? I have had that conversation twice in the last two weeks at work.
Honestly, the only thing keeping me sane is RTJ4 by Run the Jewels. I’m sorry, but two guys, one white, one black, have made the record for 2020.Killer Mike and El-P have put together the perfect soundscape to encapsulate the fear, anger and dread most of us feel.
The numbers coming in so far keep me cautiously optimistic. (After Hillary, I’m never fully optimistic about polls ever again). But between lawsuits, poll watchers, intentional obstruction of voting in minority communities, I think it will take a small miracle for a clear victor by Wednesday morning. If the Dems surrender b y then, I may never vote Democrat again. Democrats did not fight in 2000, 2004, and 2016. If they don’t fight now, they’re nothing but controlled opposition, the children of Colmes, and the Washington Wizards in cheap suits.
Tomorrow night, my plan is not to watch any TV or doom scroll Facebook. If something comes up locally that requires group action, I’m hoping someone will message me at least. If this goes the way people like Sarah Kendzior say it will(if you aren’t reading her yet, please do so ASAP, and give copies to friends) many of us will need to put our marching shoes on.
Lastly, don’t take this post as me losing hope. I still have it. I’m just worried for so many suffering right now, who might continue to suffer or worse if things implode in my country the way they might. I fear for my family and friends. I’ve already lost some of both to COVID-19, and there may be more to come.
I hope there’s better after this. There will still be work to do even if Biden gets in on January 20th. America lost its taste for holding those in power’s feet to the flames. It needs to get it back again. We can’t dream of an America that once was, that left so many behind. We need to move ahead to a better America, one that walks its walk, talks it talk, and provides for everyone, regardless of color or creed. I think it’s coming; I just don’t know when. Good night.