I stand with you

The worst part of the election for me has to do with the amount of vitriol thrown in this cycle, much of it landing on friends, family, loved ones, and fellow citizens who have done nothing wrong but be themselves. And it was spewed by our President-elect. It is incredibly painful for me. I can only image what it must be like for them. Someone who clearly does not respect women, believes all Muslims are dangerous, believes Mexicans coming to our country are rapists and murderers, and who chose a VP who believes in conversion therapy was elected in spite of it all. As a country we believed these were justifiable positions or otherwise irrelevant characteristics to have in a President and running mate.

Knowing this, it seems impossible to me that the United States will ever be a country where everyone is treated equally. These same supporters have been the ones to deny the hundreds of deaths at the hands of police each year is a problem, but the deaths of cops by black men are. They are the same people who think sexual assault victims are lying when they report the crimes perpetrated against them and do so for the attention, especially if the accused is anyone of notoriety. They believe freedom of speech entitles them to share their derogatory comments to anyone about anyone without any blowback from either party.

And that worries me. We are pride ourselves on being the land of the free. But many are not free in the same sense others are. The growing voices of those who are still restrained by our institutions has scared those with that greater freedom as they think to make room at the table they will have to lose some of the privileges they’ve always had. They point to the replacement of well paying jobs with service industry jobs that pay mediocre wages is proof of what that path holds. They think the path to greater equality is less for all. We have been unable to convince them that the alternative to taking space away from those at the table in order to seat more is to build a bigger table. I’m not certain what it’s going to take to convince people of this and fear we are headed for a Hobbesian nightmare of take what you can for yourself for as long as you can hold onto it.

Speaking with some who supported Trump, I get a sense of disaffectedness with our government from them. That Washington was not doing anything to make their lives better and as long as we kept electing more of the same, which Clinton is certainly an example of, nothing was going to change. They felt a need to take a chance on someone who wasn’t like those already in Washington in order to actually get something different. Trump was that option for them. From my perspective they didn’t look closely enough at what those different things (the bigotry, authoritarianism, misogyny, and deceitfulness) would be. They chose to take a pill with a sugar center and either failed to recognize it was coated in cyanide or didn’t care. I cannot respect such short-sighted gambling, even though I do sympathize with the need for change in Washington.

I hope this public choice will not bring about my deepest fears associated with it. I hope we can come together and help each other through the difficulties we all face. I hope we can respect each other and recognize the truth in our cries of pain. But the mockery and apathy and victim blaming I have witnessed leaves me skeptical and uncertain that the America of my dreams will ever be.