A Trump voter? Don’t expect me to forget
Disillusionment has a bad rap, though I happen to be a fan of it.
When someone mentions disillusionment, we mostly want to provide comfort and say we are sorry those illusions have been removed, because generally, illusions are so much nicer than, well, reality.
But think about that. Illusions get in the way of our understanding the world as it is. Wrapped in gauzy illusions, we make bad decisions, and aching for anything that clouds our vision is not a terribly grown- up thing to do.
Throughout the week’s long election night that stretched into days, while Donald J. Trump and his supporters took to social media to falsely claim the election was rigged and Trump, himself, lawyered up, Joe Biden let his followers know he would be president of everyone, not just his supporters. Meanwhile, some of those supporters took to social media to mourn their dashed hopes, that the shellacking they’d envisioned for Trump didn’t happen. People who’d planned a victory party on Tuesday instead tucked themselves in for a series of sleepless nights, with visions of 2016 replaying in their heads. They awakened throughout the night to doom scroll: Did Arizona report yet?
The election numbers were especially difficult to stomach among people who’d become more aware of the dank fissures that weaken us. Some of them seemed to have believed that because they had an awakening, their Drunk Uncle Ed had, as well. For the most part, that was not the case and Drunk Uncle Ed cheerfully voted for Trump.
It doesn’t take a political scientist to see that instead of coming to an appreciation of what it’s like to move through the world as, say, a Black woman, Trump’s trolls instead spent the campaign following Trump’s lead by engaging in the worst kind of rhetoric against women candidates, against candidates of color, against anyone who had the temerity to be something other than a white guy. Even in welleducated Connecticut, the call of the troll was loud, and when the trolls were questioned, their defense generally moved from “Can’t you take a joke?” to “I’m going to sue you for libel” to “Shut up and make me a sandwich.” Bullies, all of them.
I wanted Donald J. Trump buried under ballots so deep that a busload of hungry lawyers could not dig him out. A landslide for Biden would have felt like a repudiation of everything the current administration represents, but a landslide might have masked the sad state we’re in. We in Blue State Connecticut can sometimes forget that not everyone thinks as we do. Those pickup trucks waving Trump flags? The drivers have done some impressive mental gymnastics to, for one example, somehow make separating from their parents and caging children ( and not keeping records because there was never any intention to reunite those families) a viable political policy.
The polls hadn’t yet closed before well- meaning Democrats ( including Biden, himself) began talking about coming together as a nation – a high- minded notion that works well, in theory, but the discussions that raged weren’t about whether we build a bridge or close a school. They were fundamentally deeper.
So while I appreciate forgiveness, for now I’m taking my cue from my beloved aunt in Missouri. The pandemic and her elderly friends’ slavish embrace of Trumpism has made her a very lonely Democrat in blood- red Jasper County. She has decided to take out an ad in the local ( Republican) newspaper. In her ninth decade, she is in search of new friends and she figures to find one with a wellcrafted ad. I will help her write it. We are only partly kidding.
When my 9- year old grandson asked from the backseat last week if it was OK if he remained friends with someone who likes Trump, I said yes, absolutely. We are actually related to people who like Trump and short of kicking them out of the family, well…
What I didn’t say was that if we can’t pick our family, we choose friends who are kind, and what is kind about today’s Republican politics?
Meanwhile, in the waning days of Trump’s horrific, lower- your- expectationsand- then- lower- them- more administration, this liberal snowflake will wait for the Republican health care plan that should arrive roughly the same time Trump releases his taxes. Or maybe both events will come during Trump’s fake infrastructure week. I’m kidding. I believe I’m done with pretending. After this ridiculous election, I now officially know you by your vote, your flag, and your bombast. Please don’t expect me to forget.