Considerations on the Eve of the Presidential Election
A few situations to consider:
1) Let’s say two of your children attend the same elementary
school, a school you and they both love, with excellent teachers. In July, you
get a letter and a phone call from the school that there will be a new
principal beginning with the new school year. To get everyone acquainted, you
are invited, with your children, to a meeting at the school, a sort of meet-and-greet with the new leader.
Everyone arrives and has snacks and sodas and finally the
principal weaves his way to the front of the room to a podium to introduce
himself formally and make a speech. During that speech, he talks about his
previous experience and success, and begins bragging about his achievements.
Then, oddly he launches into imitating the secretary at the superintendent’s
office, who has a disability. He jokes about how he couldn’t understand the way
she talks, and even physically imitates her.
What would happen? I can tell you without a doubt what would
happen. The room would go silent. Jaws would drop. No parent in their right
mind would allow this principal to step one foot back into that school. Parents
would picket; video of the offensive speech would be played. Unless you wanted
this to be the person who led your child’s education, which no one would, you
would do any and everything to make sure this person was not the principal. And
if he somehow got through all of the petitions and picketing, and backlash, you
wouldn’t send your child there, you would do anything else.
2) Your son is a junior in high school and is on the football
team. The school’s head coach has just retired after years at the school, and the
new coach is introduced. During practice one afternoon, your son and others
tape the coach talking to them, in unbelievably inappropriate terms about “moving”
on women without consent. It gets worse. The coach uses vulgarity you can’t
imagine a teacher or coach or anyone would.
Just one guess, within 24 hours,
that coach would no longer have a job.
Enough examples. It’s clear what this about.
This election has troubled me more than any other in my
lifetime. But the examples above hit me for the craziest of reasons today. When
the tape was released of Trump with Billy Bush, talking about what amounts to
sexual assault, and being so vulgar and arrogant that it was stomach turning,
there was damage to Trump’s campaign, but nothing catastrophic. However, it
appears Billy Bush has lost his job. How did we become a country where a talk
show host is held to a higher degree of accountability than a presidential candidate? Why in the world would we never accept Trump in a job such as principal or coach, but he is a heartbeat from the White House?
For years, Trump has been seen as a joke, a caricature of an
insecure businessman with bad hair. I have seen jokes in my Facebook feed over
the years from both sides of the political lines, and everyone agreed and made
fun of him. Yes, he might be successful in business, but with multiple
bankruptcies and other scandals, this has really left him as more of a reality show
oddity than carrying heft in the business world. He had a brand, and every
election year he set out to improve it. We all laughed and he faded away within
a month or so. But all of the sudden, he is the GOP candidate, and people are not joking, but defending every new bit of reprehensible behavior.
The reason both infuriates me and
breaks my heart. One of the main reasons that we are where we are right now is
racism. I was not so naïve to think that our country was without racism, I have
lived in areas where I watched the effects of it (with sadness) every day. But
I did not realize how many people were so truly angry that a black man was
elected president. Not all of his detractors are racist, but I believe so many
people explain away their concerns, when all the while, racism is at the heart
of it. I have tried to tell myself otherwise, but I hear what is being said at
rallies, I watch white supremacy groups publicly support Trump (with no discouragement
from him), and suddenly the swastika appears at his rallies, along with
confederate flags. You can only ignore the signs for so long.
Things have been bad for a long time—we have worked slowly as
a country to see all people--any race, color, or creed as equal. But every day
now, as I watch the news, I feel us slipping backwards. It scares me. It makes
me angry. Not all of it is Trump’s fault, but I will say this: once Trump
stepped on a national stage and asked for the deportation of Muslims, demanded
a wall be built to keep out Mexican “rapists”, and made fun—horribly,
despicably—of a disabled person, he opened a vein for people out there who had
these same horrible feelings, but had kept their mouths shut and tried to
behave in society. Trump opened a door that can’t be shut. After all, if the US
GOP candidate can stand in front of America and spit racist remarks and demean
people, why shouldn’t everyone?
It both shocks and saddens me that if you honestly had to
answer the top two questions at the beginning of this post, I know what your
answers would be. I know that even my casual acquaintances on Facebook care
deeply about their children and want to instill values and decency in them.
But why then, would we ever give such a man, who has done
these things—and worse—even more power? Not just over a school, not just over a
small group, but over our country? I can’t make it make sense. I understand
that I am liberal, and I have voted that way in every election, and I
understand party loyalty. This is so different. This is a truly disgraceful,
terrifying choice, up against an experienced, capable candidate. Maybe she’s not
your favorite person, maybe you dislike her, maybe you disagree with her. But
she is not shouting racist words, inciting violence at her rallies, or asking
or even referring to harming her opponent. I am not voting for Hillary Clinton
just because she is the lesser of two evils, I believe in her. But I can tell
you without one ounce of hesitation that if Trump were on the democratic
ticket, I would vote for anyone, ANYONE, but him.
No, he is not asking to be the new principal or coach at
your child’s school. He is asking for so much more. He is not even asking. He
is assuming that we will all overlook what he calls “just words”. I won’t. And
for the next four years, if God forbid he is elected, every time the television
is on, and he is speaking, your children won’t.
Words are powerful. Hate is powerful.
We are better than this. Those are the words I am living by and
saying to myself every day.
I hope you will, too.
