Last night I was thinking about the message that this election sends to the world, and I was upset about the fact that we have elected a bully and a predator. Because I kept thinking to myself "this is not who we are." But this morning I realize - this is who we are. To some extent or another, America has always been a bully and a predator. Nothing has changed.
I'm sad that white men and evangelicals voted so strongly for Trump. I wanted people to care about sexual assault. I wanted people to be willing to defend me when someone grabs me by the pussy. I thought maybe I lived in a world where people would. But like many people, I've been living in a bubble. Evangelical Christians and white men don't care. They didn't care when I was six and they don't care now. And when it comes right down to it, they can swing an election and prevent their nightmare of a woman in office from coming true. Even if it means we have to have a bigoted sexual predator representing us as a nation.
So this is a sobering moment, but it's important to have a clear vision of who we are and where we are. And now back to the task of raising girls in a world like this...
Very sad, but not surprising.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how to talk to my second graders about bullying anymore either. I'm thinking "don't act like the man we just elected as president of the US" isn't going to cut it.
ReplyDeleteIs it too early to be looking at midterm elections? That's all I've got right now.
ReplyDeleteI asked a couple of my FB "friends" who voted for him how they could do it in light of the sexual assaults he admits to. They said they don't think he actually did them and repeated the "locker room talk" thing. This is so infuriating. Even if it was "locker room talk," then that means he's lying, and about something as heinous as sexual assault, and laughing about it. Why can't people manage to see that? I can't imagine anyone else getting away with even joking about it, let alone claiming to have done it.
ReplyDeleteIt's straigh up classism. It has to be classism. Imagine a black or white working class candidate bragging about grabbing women like that. End of political career. No questions asked.
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