I wish I could reach the white women who voted for Trump. I don’t want to hold myself above them for being more moral or better informed than they are. Nevertheless, I wish I open their eyes to see that Donald Trump is harming America and its interests, even (especially) interests that Republicans and Conservatives embraced until very recently.
My loved ones live in a cloud of befuddlement, seemingly blind to Trump’s broken promises, rogue anti-constitutional behavior (threat of a third term), and stoked with fear—fear that Fox News serves up to fill a purpose in their vulnerable existence.
I lost one friend when I told her I had been given the Covid vaccine.
“Um, I will not be getting the vaccine.” She commented, haughtily, and I never heard from her again.
My mom still will not get her recent Covid booster. She tells me she was afraid and now just can’t seem to schedule an appointment. I offered. I am on shaky ground with another friend. She knows I am a Democrat. She is a wonderful person and a Conservative. Our politics meet close to the middle. Nevertheless, there is a line. For years we avoided talking about politics. Now we avoid talking to each other.
What do we do? What do we say? How do we hear each other? How do we heal? How do we hope? How do we protect the ones we love? It’s like I am walking in a blizzard. The noise distracts me from any sort of productive focus. That’s why I decided to write. Historically writing helps me clear my head. I need to document our current moment. Oh my God, what is happening? I am actually freaking out!
America! Why?
Stop telling me to be patient and to let Trump have time to lower the price of eggs. Eggs? Do you even remember that the high price of eggs is why you voted for him?
“The jump in egg prices was due to an outbreak of Avian flu that occurred before Trump took office, although how he deals with the outbreak going forward is on him.But this is very similar to the story of the pandemic and Biden. The media kept telling us that people don’t blame the pandemic for inflation, they blame Biden. If Biden can be nailed for inflation caused by the pandemic, we should be able to nail Trump for soaring egg prices caused by Avian flu. After all, people don’t see Avian flu, they see high egg prices.”
And immigrants? People he made you afraid of, (xenophobia)! They are legal immigrants, immigrants who are now being plucked from their everyday lives. Not rapists. Not gang members. Everyday people are being taken. What happened to,
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Next it will be college students exercising their free speech. And as our free speech is algorithm’ed away by a South African non-elected dictator, the richest man in the world, determined to hurt the poor, the disadvantaged and the different:
“Rather than ideas competing freely on their merits, algorithms amplify or suppress the reach of messages… introducing an unprecedented form of interference in the free exchange of ideas that is often overlooked.”
You can quote me on this because after the college students are silenced, you will find next it will be people like you and me, a middle class white woman who is trying to use her voice:
“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Look at history. First they came for the immigrants. Soon everyone who pushed back against the current regime was taken by plain clothed, masked officials under the cover of darkness and marched to a prison camp which soon became a death camp where millions were forced to strip down, abandon their belongings and their clothes. Naked, they had their heads shaved and were given a prison number to “serve as efficient management of camps,” which was tattooed on their forearms; dehumanized. It really is Nazi Germany 1933.
No! I am not being dramatic.
Look at El Salvador and the immigrants that were recently flown there via a Trump order. Trump openly ignored a judge who told the Trump Administration to stop the flights. The plane flew on. Men, with no due process, abased and placed in an El Salvadorian prison camp, a camp that is not their home country and left to be ignored, brutalized. How will they get justice?
My mom says and I quote,
“I like the lady who does my nails because she is an American. I can understand her. I couldn’t understand those other ladies.”
Implication: “English is not their first language. Immigrants are something to be feared. They are not like us.”
In my Mom’s defense, she is eighty-four and wears hearing aids. I can understand why she wants to be understood by the person she pays to do her nails. Unfortunately, her comment is clouded by the fact that Fox News and News Max run nonstop in the background of her home.
I reminded her that at age fifteen her grandfather immigrated from Luxembourg.
“Mom, I bet your grandpa was hard to understand when he immigrated here. I hope people were gave him a pass.”
She nodded.
I am not implying that my mom doesn’t get to choose who she pays to do her nails. What I am saying is I hope she will see immigrants differently. I hope she will consider that maybe there is a world beyond what Fox News is spoon feeding her.
My mom immediately followed with,
“I am not a racist.”
It was like she had been coached, given a script, and prepared to talk to her woke, leftist, non-christian daughter. How can I penetrate this messaging? How can I penetrate the fact that my mom believes I am the bad guy, better, that I am on the wrong team? How can I have a conversation like we were able to have during the George W. Bush years. I literally have a personal connection to the men who created the torture program for Guantanamo Bay. It broke my brain then. Now this dark piece of trivia feels like a helpful bridge. Like,
“hey, I know one of these dudes. His family seems really nice.”