This Ain't An Election

I am not sure I have ever been more anxious than I am right now. It's November 2nd, tomorrow is the US election. Tomorrow begins the decision if America is deserving of its life, or if it gets dragged out back to be shot as a mercy. This is our Old Yeller moment, and I suspect that when the results are read, I will react the same way as I did upon my first reading of that book. Long bouts of inconsolable shrieking crying.

I am not optimistic, to say the least. I spent most of this year witnessing the ugliness that has been allowed to fester, from a non-response to a global pandemic, to being pepper-sprayed by the national guard every night for most of the summer for the horrible act of providing first aid to protestors. I have watched armed "militias" storm capital buildings with military-grade weapons to remain unchallenged by cops because someone told them to wear a mask.

Inside my little bubble, I know that there are reasonable people, but anyone beyond the confines of my safe people, I know that there lay monsters. In an attempt to express my frustration, I spoke to an acquaintance about my fear. I'm a queer woman with a mixed-race child and middle eastern ancestry. I have watched this administration strip away rights from every single group that aren't rich white cis heterosexual men. And I was told, that I was overreacting.

I am so tired of being told that I am overreacting. I am so tired of being told that I am panicked about nothing. When the news broke about the border camps, and the separating of migrant children from their families, I could do nothing except nod my head and say, "told you so." People were horrified, and then they were exhausted, and now they are indifferent.

I have watched a new rise in white supremacy sprout and then bloom and grow and spread, insidious and ruthless. And all I could do was not my head, and say, "I told you so." I can fight, I will fight, I have been fighting, but it fucking sucks to always be right about the worst in humanity. I cried for weeks after that heinous pile of festering feces was elected in 2016, and I have no doubt that this year will be worse.

I have no doubt that no matter what the results of the election are, war is coming, and it is coming in a way that no one who has been shaking their heads and doing nothing all this time will be prepared for. When you're being dragged from your home in the middle of the night and subjected to horrors when there are foreign armies on our shores to liberate the people of America from itself maybe then they will see, but even then probably not. If the last four years have taught me anything, it is that this country in particular has the memory of a goldfish, and those little concentration camps are a surprise every single time.

I don't know what will happen, but I can guess. I can say that no matter who wins the election there will be unrest, there will be disputes about the fairness of the election. I expect that much like last year Biden will win the popular vote, but the electoral college will once again elect Donald Trump. After all, he is good for business and bad for people. And our system of government is meant to be good for business not for people.

If pressed for a prediction, I will say that Donald Trump whether he wins or loses, will not cede power, and what will happen after will happen at the cost of more American lives than any war or virus we have seen prior. I expect foreign intervention and deployment of nuclear weapons. I expect ground troops and mass suicides. I expect chemical weaponry.

All I can say now my friends is, hold tight to all you love, from a distance, up close but responsibly, however you can. This is the eve of the war, and tomorrow we may die.