The Fifth of November

Like many, many people, my anxiety leading up to election day is at peak level. Thanks to early voting in Minnesota, I cast my vote weeks ago; however, waiting for the results is dissolving my mental health. I feel like I am waiting to discover how my life will proceed. Will I have a job, or will the Department of Education dissolve? Will my rights be further eroded, or will those rolled back in recent years be restored? Will the democratic experiment continue, or will fascism become the new standard operating procedure?

I didn’t fully understand or appreciate the security settled law afforded me until the past few years. Never before have I felt this level of doubt or uncertainty during an election cycle. While I try not to let my imagination run away with me, it’s hard to keep images from Margret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale from flashing into my consciousness. It has become apparent to me that The Constitution and The Bill of Rights aren’t worth anything more than the paper they are written on when segments of the population aren’t interested in upholding them. It terrifies me when I hear men (JD Vance included) talk about taking the vote away from women either by only allowing parents to vote, one vote per family, or by repealing the 19th Amendment. Republicans have belittled women for their life choices. I hear so many conservatives pushing a narrative that reduces my worth down to my ability to reproduce, cook dinner, and keep a house. They don’t value me as a person but as a support staff.

I worry that my mother, aunts, and uncles will lose their Social Security and Medicare benefits. I feel sick when I think of the friends and students who may be deported on Day 1 if Trump is elected. I am angry at the efforts to “secure the election” that are actually thinly veiled attempts to cast doubt on the election outcome. I cry when I consider that my niece and nephew may have their marriages ruled illegal and their authentic existence on this earth deemed a threat. One of the presidential candidates refuses to state if he will peacefully accept the election results if he loses. He has already demonstrated that he will support violence and spread lies if it will get him the outcome he wants.

I expect that my anxiety will not be alleviated by the time I go to bed on Tuesday. The election won’t likely be settled for a few days to a couple of weeks after the polls close. We have an unreasonable expectation that we will know the presidential winner on election day. We need to let go of this. I fear some bad actors will try to flout election law like some wanted then Vice President Pence to do during the 2020 election certification. The former president already alluded to this in a recent rally at Madison Square Garden.

Bad behavior has been normalized in the past decade because some of our loudest leaders don’t demonstrate character or treat others with kindness. I worry about the amount of hate and intolerance I witness daily. We can’t go on this way. We are a divided nation, doubled over and heading for a fall.

I expect there will be political violence no matter how the election goes. This is, unfortunately, now a part of our politics. We have already seen ballot boxes set ablaze, destroying hundreds of ballots. Political sign theft is so common that some people have attached Apple Tags to their signs so they can track them when they are stolen. George Washington would be disappointed to learn the peaceful transition of power he established at the end of his presidency didn’t occur in 2021.

Over the coming days, I will be careful to avoid being sucked into the 24-hour new cycle. I will channel my energy into reading and other projects I am working on. I hope that the U.S. will vote to continue this experiment that started 248 years ago and not join the list of failed democracies.