Election 2024

An Alternative Voter Guide

Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

I hold my breath when I am anxious. I have done it my whole life. I’m pretty sure my mother did it. I know my son does it. There is some twisted, subconscious safety in being as still as possible until a threat, physical or mental, passes. It speaks to our most animal instincts, like a deer being stalked in the forest.

The critical task for me has been in noticing when I am doing it and reminding myself to oxygenate properly in those moments. It has taken months of daily work. I am finally doing it almost automatically in times of stress. Deep breaths. In. Out. Until this week.

I don’t know that I can call it PTSD. But the anxiety is reminiscent of late October 2016. The constant news updates, checking of polling data, electoral math, the flood of campaign texts and emails. The disbelief that an outcome as ludicrous and detrimental as a Trump presidency could be possible in America, AGAIN.

The first time around, my son was 13. The day after the election, in my complete stupor, I yelled at him that he was the next generation of men and he had to do better. Not my greatest parenting moment. I was scared and angry. He was just scared. No one knew what that presidency would look like. The system would hold, we reassured ourselves. We ended up with children in cages, no more Roe, and a severely slanted and malleable Supreme Court.

This time around, we know better. My son is 21, and voted in his first Presidential election. We spent an hour together last week, decoding the language of ballot measures and propositions to understand what was really at stake. It was a lot. And this time, we have the arrogantly-publicized threats to our democracy to show us what a second Trump term would mean. The billionaires are closing ranks and making plans. The bigots and chauvinists have a fat playbook. The acolytes are being incited to violence. The system itself is under threat.

Some might ask why I do this to myself. It’s not like I can do anything other than vote, right? Why don’t I shut it off? Skip a news cycle or two. That would be easy, given my comfortable and privileged position, racially, geographically, and socio-economically.

For that thought train, I have the words of German Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemöller, etched on my brain as reminder. Once a Nazi sympathizer, and later a vocal critic of Hitler’s actions, Niemöller gave this public address at the end of the war, having spent eight years in a concentration camp:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Social movements have long called out complacency as a form of complicity. I tend to agree. Injustice happens outside of our field of vision until we can no longer look away and it is too late to do anything. One could argue that the phenomenon Niemöller noted is already happening to the state of actual journalism in America as it competes with TikTok, podcasting, and media owners who are trying to decide which side of their bread is buttered financially and politically.

We have to create the future we want. We do not have to live with the future we are dealt. It is part of noticing, of being awake to the world around us. And of thinking bigger than just ourselves, of the needs of our fellow humans. For societies to actually work, every-man-for-himself does not cut it. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of American individualism. Someone, somewhere had to make your bootstraps for you to pull them up. We all depend on each other. To think otherwise is either pompous or lazy.

Americans everywhere are angry and scared for a multitude of very real reasons (and some manufactured). No one can solve all the things all the time and live a normal life. I get why it is seemingly convenient to have a leader who says they will just “take care of it.” Everyone needs a parent every once in a while. But that is not really how democracy works. And this candidate is not Father of the Year material by any stretch. He is the wealthy dead-beat dad who ditches you at the holidays for his golf resort in Florida with his cronies. The “it” is variable depending on who you are. So whose agenda does “it” really cover? We each have to accept our place in the process. It is a privilege as much as a duty.

As a part of my own sanity-maintenance plan for the coming weeks and months, regardless of election outcome, I am trying to pause, actively breath, and differentiate anger from fear (unfounded or not), from things completely out of my control, from workable action.

I am laying it all out here, in case any of it resonates.

I am Angry:

That we have a percentage of the populace who is unbothered and, in fact, emboldened by a potential leader who is a convicted criminal and a wannabe dictator.

That the authoritarians of the world are lining up behind that candidate like villains behind the Joker to give power to the few at the expense of the many.

That, in 2024, fully one half of the human population is still considered less than human in our ability to make our own choices, or be fully acknowledged for our contributions, while still bearing the burdens of furthering the population and making societies run.

That the national example for what it means to be a good man in America is anything but, and that boys and young men are still discouraged from having and discussing real feelings in favor of posturing, hatred, and shame.

That so many in power pay lip service to the value of human life in the abstract but not in their treatment of real humans.

That power, as ever, corrupts absolutely.

I am Afraid:

Women will have less and less control over their own bodies. Women’s rights will get set back 50 years or more.

Having a fact-averse, convicted rapist in the highest office will advance the ongoing acceptability of toxic masculinity in our culture that harms men and women both.

Truth, evidence, and science will no longer hold sway in people’s worldview and decision making.

Reporting of facts, hearing from real people, listening to each other will all become optional.

America will no longer be a welcoming place for those trying to find a better life.

Quality education will no longer be a measure of a healthy society.

Lives will get increasingly insular based on one kind of experience, and people will continue to be divided for lack of exposure to anything different.

Young people will not have a future with healthy air, clean water, or possibility for a better life than their parents had.

I will try to Act by:

Talking and listening to the women of all ages in my life. What do they want for themselves?

Talking and listening to the young men in my life. Discussing the issues, voting, and asking them what they are afraid of, and what they understand their power to be.

Talking and listening to the working people in my life.

Noticing and Listening to the people around me whose stories I may not know.

Finding empathy for those whose experience I do not share.

Thinking beyond myself and my own situation, when I can.

Imagining a future I want. It starts now.

Deep breaths. And don’t forget to VOTE!!!! Election day is 6 days away!

Happy Election!

-IWW