Just Another Wednesday

This post is set to go off at 3am the day after the election. I have every expectation that it will. I'll be asleep but it will happen anyway. There's always something technical that might gum up the works, but new days in general have a way of showing up on schedule. It's something you can count on.

I don't know what will have transpired last night. It's possible nobody knows for sure, even now. This is normal. It's important to know what you don't know. It's one of the hallmarks of a thoughtful mind. The cocksure are always missing something. The cocksure know everything all along, but it doesn't make them right.

I think most of us voters are driven by fear. It's a powerful motivator. The main difference between the two major American factions is what we fear. The faction I don't tend to vote with is afraid of a lot of things. In my view, most of those things don't exist. They are phantoms produced in the Devil's workshop to divert us from what we really should fear, to harvest our votes for the purpose of further siphoning off our wealth. Thus, the desperate refugee from violence is transformed into a murderous threat. Thus, a righteous movement of patriots marching for justice is transformed into roving bands of thugs. Thus, an attempt to claw back a share of our stolen treasure for the common good is transformed into the Socialist bogeyman, out to pick our pockets. These are the fictions manufactured by the real thieves. The fat cats. The wicked and criminally negligent destroyers of our future.

This faction has been conditioned to be afraid of The Other, and The Other has been defined so broadly it even includes me. A small, mouthy, entirely harmless human, still I am declared an enemy. I have repeatedly been declared an enemy by the president of the United States. I, and a solid majority of my fellow citizens, have been deemed unworthy of protection or even consideration. United we used to stand, but divided we elect Republicans. We're divided. Have we done it again?

I fear that our trust in our civilizing institutions, from the courts to the press, has been so degraded that we will crumble into gang warfare, featuring executions in the street and terrorist acts from all corners, with the heavily armed right-wing players the more dangerous by far.

What I fear more than anything is that we will miss our last chance to pull out of the death-spiral that is our devotion to fossil fuels. We may well have missed it already; we've wasted four precious years on top of another twenty years purchased by the Koch brothers, which they've blown on toys and party favors for their friends. Cheap energy has turned us into stumbling drunks, with decision-making abilities to match.

No matter what kind of world I've woken up to today, my path is clear. I must try hard to live up to my ideals to push my party where it needs to go, and resist the other party with all I can muster, and work for justice always, and do it peacefully. I once thought my political counterparts' brains had been scooped out and replaced by pudding. Of late I realize that pudding has been packed with nails and shards of glass. But I must remember to be kind. Kindness moves more hearts than belligerence. It's not easy. It will take stamina. But if we didn't have stamina, we'd be long gone by now.

I know we can't fight terror with terror. Not if we want to prevail.

Listen.

Psst! Hey! I'm over here!

Not you, Donald. I know you can't see me. Don't need to talk about anyone's pussy for me to know that. We all know what you think of us. That's our superpower: you can't see us, but we can see you. You're a deeply insecure old fool, of only average intelligence and little education, who needs a lot of attention, and you elevate yourself by assuming you have nothing in common, even humanity, with anyone else. You further subscribe to the preposterous notion that wealth, no matter how it is accumulated, is proof of virtue. You're a boob.

I'm waving at the rest of you, right behind Donald. You guys have spent way too much time in your little clubhouse. But we can see you, even if you can't see us. We can see you, too, Speaker Ryan, even as you rise to our defense, scolding Donald and declaring that we women should be "championed and revered."

Oh, I swann, Mr. Ryan! Thank you! That's me, up there in the stands, in my pretty velvet gown, gazing in adoration as you arrive on your muscular stallion, your long lance in your hand! Now please help me down from this high seat you put me on and give me a little of your time. I'd like a word.

This is such a simple idea: I don't know why it's so hard to understand. But here it is: I'm not that much different from you. Believe me, it hurts me more to say it than for you to hear it. Even though I am female, this unknowable Other, I am a human being who was born and is going to die. That's a mortal frame around us we share, and it's more important than the bits we don't share. And I can tell when someone is looking right through me without seeing me. If you say you revere me, I know you have no idea who I am.

Some club. You know what you people are missing? Empathy. A plain and simple willingness to see other humans as the humans they are. The ability to accept that another's experience is neither the same as yours, nor ultimately that much different. Empathy means you should be able to imagine what it might be like to be a Muslim in a country that increasingly isolates and threatens you. Or an African-American who is repeatedly pulled over and searched for driving a crappy car, or a really nice car. Or a Syrian fleeing his only home with his bloodied children only to find there is no other home for him. Or an ordinary woman reflexively strategizing how to get home without being assaulted. Do some of us frighten you, or repel you, or bore you? That's a sign you need to listen harder. It takes practice. The more you are able to imagine yourself in someone else's skin, the more justice there will be in this world, and the closer we will be to achieving peace..

I don't want a champion. I'll be fine. There are some big things you could help me with: you could dismantle the for-profit health insurance industry. You could dismantle the for-itself wealth industry. You could change the tax system so that our shared burdens are borne fairly. You could recognize that economic growth is unsustainable and that the earth's resources are finite. You could put people and planet over profit.

But you won't. I can see you. I'll see you in November.