Electionitis

Politics is interesting an interesting beast. I spent a few months working in DC in 2003, enough to know I wasn't cut out for that particular kind of pressure. 

Over the weekend, a socially distanced walk and talk got heated. I haven't avoided talking about the recent election (and in case you're wondering, I voted for 'Biden/Harris,' I voted absentee, and I sent my ballot in in late September. I did all the voting things; I'm not sure I filled out all of the paperwork correctly, but I am going to hope I did; it seemed more convoluted than the last absentee ballots I sent in). 

After repeatedly saying I could not talk objectively about the Trump administration, I finally lost my temper. I honestly have not lost my temperbwith someone like this since (that wasn't my former husband) since 1995.  

So, after I stopped vomitting from my panic attack and was able to sit down I wrote a letter.

Dear Person: 

You did hit a nerve, because I have been dealing with this issue for 18 months in one form or another and in the last 8 weeks, it has only amped up. We talked about this in the park and then again and when I stated my piece, I really felt you were ignoring me. I have literally had people shouting at me. And I do feel responsible. I feel like I didn't do enough to prevent this confusion in the same way I didn't walk out my marriage the first time my ex-husband hit me. I am happy that you and your other friends can talk about this issue at length. But I really feel like you just didn't want to hear me.  

The week of the election was horrid. But or those of us who vote in Ohio or in other swing states, the election started last year. Even abroad, I received numerous texts, phone calls and emails. And I am tired. For so many reason, but this? The parallel to an abusive marriage is real for me. This situation? Has been building since Gerald Ford accepted Nixon's resignation the 70s. This isn't something that just came out no where. This is a dark storm that has been brewing in a fractious country that no one wants to admit is fractious. 

It came full-throttle in 2000 and the brief interludes of New Labour and The George W Bush Love-In followed by Obama...there are historic parallels to this. Ancient Greece, Rome, the 1% as the French Monarchy, disenchanted. Latin America, African nations that we've forced to take the US brand of representative democracy like it was the best thing going. And maybe it was. But I don't the luxury of sitting around having the endless debates. I have to have the debates piecemeal and up against a projection screen where the real-time effects are being played out and impact all of us. 

Over here, everyone says 'How could 70 million?' Same way the UK decided to intern Jews who were German, or send members of the Windrush Generation back.   ignorance masked as foreign policy. 'But they should know better.' 'Post-truth.' On it goes. 'I can't do this with you; it is traumatic for me to watch my country emerge from an abusive relationship.' ' But I want to know what you think.' But I've told you. And I've already asked if we could talk about something else. I draw my parallels, I say my piece and then I go back to trying to make the world better one tiny piece at time. What else can I do? I can record what I see, action where I can, then step back and look around at the wider world. It is literally. All. I. Can. Do. 

'Harvard grads, 1% this woman running his Press Office is so smart...how can she??'  Look: I know several people who have gone to Harvard Law. Are they any smarter than the average state-university educated person? Some are, most are not. Is every member of the 70 million who voted for Trump a racist? I don't believe so. Are the same people who kept 10 years of a Thatcher-led government in power classist? The majority who voted for Brexit? I hope not.

 All I know...is right now, this situation makes me feel that no place is safe, that I have to hunker down to ride out storms for all sides. What is going to happen? No flipping clue. But I have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best and live/love in between. Harvard is not the pinnacle of genius any more than Oxford and Cambridge are. They are part of an established and recognised something, to be sure. But honestly...Perfidia exists regardless of where your degree is from. Some people are going to do what they do to get where they feel they should be, the rest of us be dang-nabbited. But I just can't keep having conversations about 'How could, how could,' but the sh*t of it is that we're in this, so the 'could' is irrelevant.

McKeney has been press secretary since April. I don't know her to comment but she seems power hunger and viciously ambitious. She strikes me as the kind who will learn the anthem of the invading Army with gusto. But honestly,   It's the quieter ones you have to worry about. The ones who have stayed through the entire administration and continue to stay. They are the ones to worry about because they will segue into other areas of DC administrative work like a sleeping virus.

I'm sorry that you find my exhaustion and terror to be off-putting. I have to talk about this every day in one form or another, a minimum of 3 times. It leaves me in tatters. And I am sorry that I upset you. I felt attacked and blamed and you are right: those are my issues, that shame.

I hope we can move past this because I know we are on the same side. But I can't answer the question of how 70 million people voted the way they did because the fact is that the did it.'

Ultimately, we two can't move past my inability to not see the end of the Trump administration as my country waking up from a relationship that has turned abusive. And this friendship will conclude, which makes me sad and relieved. Because we are all going through our own pain right now and her esponse said as much. 

So we leave the friendship there: a wild thing run its course, the body still warm.