Anticipation

“Anticipation…is making me wait…keeping me waiting…”

 

Those of us who have already voted– 50 million plus U.S. citizens–are on pins and needles, waiting for November 3rd to arrive and the final tally of total votes to be released. Which may not happen on November 3rd, but weeks or even months later, if the vote is anywhere close.

 

Anticipation is a double-edged sword in this instance.

 

Unlike the song, we aren’t anticipating a romantic interlude or the longevity of a budding relationship. This kind of anticipation comes with a feeling of mortal dread. It feels eerily like waiting for the other shoe to drop–the one that can spell disaster for our vision of the United States going forward.

 

And sadly, the anticipation/anxiety is the same on both sides.  Both sides are afraid the other candidate will win!  And both sides think it’s misinformation and disinformation that is causing the other side to be anxious.  (Some of that is warranted, but there’s far more misinformation and disinformation on the GOP side than there is on the DEM side.)

 

On the lily white evangelical far right, they’re afraid that if Trump doesn’t regain the Oval Office, and/or if their other candidates don’t keep (or win) their offices, the “communist” “socialist” (HA HA HA HA HA) Joe Biden will undo the American history-long tradition of keeping white male cisgender Americans at the apex of the privilege and rights pyramid, where they can dictate to the rest of us how to deploy our bodies, who we can marry, and how much money we can make because race/orientation/gender.

 

On the Big Tent Democrats “left” (our Left is actually the moderate position everywhere else in the developed world), we’re hugely NOT fans of the established policies mentioned above!  We believe all citizens (and those striving to become citizens) should be on a level playing field with white male cisgender citizens–that there should be no systemic, systematic hierarchy that keeps people of color and women from getting ahead. There should be no laws that make citizens unequal, such as voter suppression, gerrymandering, anti-LGBTQI legislation, and anti-marriage equality legislation. And we believe in women’s sovereignty over their own health care and bodies. We also believe in science over The End Times and other far right mythologies, but the evangelicals can, may and will bring about our mutual extinction if they are allowed to keep plundering our planet.

 

This is why today’s anticipation is going to turn into despair and perhaps even rage for a huge swath of people, no matter who becomes our next President. But what concerns me most, as a white citizen, is that if Trump wins, the sowing of fear and division will continue from the Oval Office–a bully pulpit if ever there was one–I will be forever wearing “Don’t Blame Me! I Voted DEM”, “Black Lives Matter” and “LGBTQI” t-shirts to make it eminently clear that Hate Doesn’t Live In Me.

 

The PERSONAL fear I have is that strangers might take a look at me and assume I’m a Trump/GOP supporter because I’m white and almost 70. I want people to know they’re safe with me, cherished by me, that their concerns are mine, and that they matter to me.

 

I will never vote for a candidate that the KKK and Nazi Party endorse, so that puts me firmly on the side of equal rights for all. I have been an equal rights advocate my entire life, and I don’t plan to stop now.

 

So my anticipation right now is mostly hopeful and positive, given the polls I’ve been reading and the number of Trump signs that have been taken down by the people who placed them originally. They may still be voting for Trump, but they’re less willing to advertise it, which tells me they’re actually ashamed of their choice. They don’t want everyone to know they’re siding with racists, bigots, sexists, misogynists, xenophobes and anti-LGBTQI citizens, but they are, whether they publicly share those views or not. That alone would be a deal-breaker for me.

 

When I see a Trump sign, I automatically think “low information voter,” “Fox watcher,” and “bigot.”  I even think that when I see someone displaying an American flag (or flags) on their vehicles. And that is about as sad as it gets!!! We need to reclaim the American flag from the people who fly it with Confederate and Nazi flags or a TRUMP sticker and plant it firmly in “Equal Rights, Liberty and Justice For All” soil.

 

We’ve never been the United States that we proclaim ourselves to be to the world, but we can get a helluva lot closer to it this year when we evict the scoundrels who do their level best every day to deny equity to every one of my neighbors, whether they’re black, brown, indigenous, Muslim, atheist, Jewish, Christian or any other creed.

 

WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS.

 

(Well, the vast majority of us are.)

 

That’s why my anticipation today, as I write this, is for an imminently brighter, fairer future…

 

I’ll give Pastor John Pavlovitz the final say here. His eloquence is deafening:

 

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2020/10/18/no-i-wont-agree-to-disagree-youre-just-wrong/