I'm putting this addendum at the beginning. It's being written on 11/9/22, the day after the midterms. What follows was the original post written the weekend before the elections.
The RED WAVE did not happen. While the question of which party will control either house in Congress is not yet resolved, the margins will be so close that they only way anything will get done is a few having the courage to act in a bi-partisan way.
I'm also encouraged by what Heather Cox Richardson had to say in her newsletter today:
"I just got a text from a Gen Z voter in Michigan who has been in line to vote for more than an hour and predicts he will be there hours more. He has no intention of leaving.
If there is an obvious story from today with results still unknown, it is this: a new generation is picking up the torch of our democracy."
I'm happy to step aside and let them have at it.
1st post: The tiredness I’m experiencing is less physical and more psychological and spiritual in nature.
A little background (maybe a lot):
I was born in 1943 in a small, rural town in northeast Texas. If you’re not familiar with Texas, there are 7 distinct regions and saying you were from east Texas was the equivalent of saying you were from Mississippi. To learn a little about this part of the state watch Denzel Washington’s Great Debaters. While it’s set in east Texas in 1935, a decade later things had not changed. It’s available for streaming on Freevee.
My parents were an example of opposites attract — he was a progressive liberal and a member of the northern denomination of Presbyterians, she was a bigoted, narrow minded Southern Baptist. These differences played out when I was 16 and elected by my youth synod (that’s Presbyterian for diocese) to attend the first interdenominational and INTERRACIAL church camp in Texas — schools were still segregated. The director was Andrew Young. If you’re too young to know who he is read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Young. My bunk-mate was a Black girl from Texarkana who attended church at a non-denominational evangelical Black church. During that week we all read Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. (From a book review: “On October 28, 1959, John Howard Griffin underwent a transformation that changed many lives beyond his own—he made his skin black and traveled through the segregated Deep South. His odyssey of discovery was captured in journal entries, arguably the single most important documentation of 20th-century American racism ever written.”) Our late night conversations by the light of flash lights was one revelation after another.
That week changed my life — Dad was so proud! Mother was furious!
That was the beginning of my political involvement. I was a volunteer in campaigns, as an undergraduate I was a member of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) until I discovered they really were building bombs in the basement. I scurried over to the Young Democrats. That led to me meeting my first husband, working as an administrative assistant to state legislators, being a paid staffer at a national convention, and if not a paid worker, I’ve always been a volunteer.
As an aside, I’ve never understood how anyone could not be politically involved. Many people may or may not vote, and maybe they will try to follow the news, but never volunteer or make campaign donations. I’ve heard the excuse “politics is so dirty”. If it is, it’s because not enough people are involved. Guess I’ve always been judgmental if someone wasn’t as involved as I’ve always been. After all politics determines what’s taught in schools, how much your morning coffee costs (import duties), how long it takes to fix potholes, and all other aspects of your life. The flip side of this judgement is I’m against mandatory voting. Frankly I want the ill-informed to stay at home and NOT vote. When people decry low turnouts, I’m relieved.
Ever since the shocking results of the 2016 presidential election I’ve been swinging between anger and total despair. Yet my volunteer efforts continued. Since the beginning of lock-down I wrote postcards and letters ( two hundred letters for Beto), maintained my membership in the Alexandria Democratic Committee and participated in numerous volunteer activities.
I’m writing this just a few days before the mid-term elections so if anyone reads this it will probably be post-election. Fingers crossed that the results aren’t as dire as I fear but there seems to be a world-wide move to the right — Brexit, rise of the far-right National Front in France and a win in Italy of the far-right Fratelli d’Italia, China and North Korea’s military aggressions, and Putin being hailed by many in Russia and some of our own US far-right spokespersons as a CHRISTIAN hero who is justified in invading Ukraine, after all President Zelenskyy is a Jew, but that’s never spoken of outright, just hinted. Actually Putin has called him a Nazi — guess irony isn’t dead.
I’m resigned to what’s coming and realizing all of my efforts won’t make a difference. It seems I’ve been fighting the good fight over the same issues time and again —abortion comes to mind.
Next year’s birthday for me will be the beginning of my 8th decade. I think I’m ready to act like a turtle and hide in my “shell” (home). It’s time to see what the next generations decide to do.
As I see democracy as we’ve known it on the brink of extension, I’ve decided maybe we’ll get the government we (that’s the collective and cultural “we”) deserve. There are people who didn’t get the education they needed to prevent falling for propaganda (how can anyone become a follower of QAnon? How can there be such a large percentage of the population so incapable of critical thinking?) Racism in order to prevail needs an authoritarian government. Voter suppression is an example of this position at work. Apparently there are still enough living in fear of losing their White privilege that they are willing to support fascism. Here’s another irony — they probably couldn’t define fascism unless they could find a dictionary.
So, I’m tired and just may ignore it all. Note the “may” every day I find myself in a quandary. Of course I know the ethical position I should take but do I have the emotional energy to engage? Time will tell.
