This is a Minibabble, just me talking to you.
I’m struggling this week. As a woman. As a person who values decency. As a mother. As an educated person. As an American.
I have been thinking about what this election means to us: to women, to people who value decency, to parents, to the so-called educated elite that I’m part of, to Americans.
But every time I think of a clear takeaway from what I know about what drove voters to give the party of hatred full control of our federal government, my overeducated brain reminds me that I’m wrong.
So here we go.
I have learned that it is true that Americans have voted for women to suffer and die. This is the main thought that I can’t get rid of. And it is true: restricting healthcare for women in conservative states is leading to higher rates of injury and death. As clinics close because of restrictions on their activities, women in rural areas or cities no longer have a place to go to seek care not just for needed abortions, but also for many other aspects of their health. I am sure that we will see a rise in cancer, STDs, and, ironically, unintended pregnancies. We’ve already seen women literally dying of miscarriages because doctors are fearful of extracting dead tissue that is poisoning healthy young adults.
Why is it untrue that Americans want women to suffer and die? Because most Americans have no idea what’s happening in this country. They don’t read or understand health data. They get their news from outlets that focus on grabbing eyeballs rather than informing voters.
I have learned that Americans despise transgender people, some of whom are my friends and family members. I know this is true because they vote for a party that is stoking hatred against this tiny, vulnerable minority. I know this because they are all up in arms when a child plays soccer on a team that doesn’t match their birth gender, but they couldn’t care less that women’s sports are underfunded and underappreciated around the world. I know this because they refuse to learn the reality of transgender humans, the most basic reality being that they have always existed and will never disappear, no matter how we mistreat them.
Why is it untrue that Americans despise trans people? Because most Americans are so ill-educated they value the opinion of some random big-mouthed influencer over the reasoned and nuanced information they could get from people who have dedicated their lives to scholarship. Whether it’s a historian who could tell them the real story about trans people in history or a doctor who helps parents navigate the nuanced care of a young trans person who is still developing their sense of self, many Americans simply don’t know how to value real, reasoned information.
I have learned that Americans, practically all of whom have in their ancestral line someone who came here from elsewhere—I’ve learned that they hate immigrants. They believe that immigrants are hardly human, and that no one has a right to flee from poverty, discrimination, or persecution. I know this is true because they’ve voted for the party that says it’s OK to split up desperate families, that it’s OK to wrench hard-working people from their lives and send them to countries they had to leave, barely remember, or don’t remember at all. Americans think that without immigrants we’ll all be richer, when history and economics make it clear that the opposite is true. America has always run on the hopeful power of new arrivals.
Why is it untrue that Americans hate immigrants? Because in most places in this country our educational system is so broken that many people have no idea what immigration really is, how it worked historically, and why our system is broken at this time. They can’t understand why people are leaving their homes, and what they have to offer to America.
I have learned that Americans are so lacking in empathy that they think of people not like themselves as a problem to be solved, that others are not just humans like themselves. I know this is true because they are willing to vote for people who spill shit from their mouths and call it reality.
Why is it untrue that Americans are lacking in empathy? Well, it’s not untrue. But it is the case that more and more people don’t see each other as people anymore, and for that I blame technology that has sucked them so deeply into their devices that they have dissociated from the people around them. People “like” and “love” and “care” for a post about an injured dog, but they are killing pedestrians on our roads like never before. People “love” and “haha” on a post about a cute baby, but they have ceased to care about the health of the very real babies living in their communities. They spend more time with their devices than they do with other human beings.
I have learned that Americans hate this earth and are happy to continue poisoning it as long as their grocery bill doesn’t go up. I know this is true because four years of the incoming administration will destroy any chance we have to stop the forward march of devastating climate change. I know it’s true because anyone who understands economics knows that our grocery bills aren’t going to go down when California dries up. Our grocery bills aren’t going to go down when oranges can no longer be grown in Florida because it’s lost one fifth of its landmass to water. Our grocery bills aren’t going to go down when every year we lose farmland that has been permanently poisoned by forever chemicals.
Why is it untrue that Americans hate this earth? Because Americans are being inundated with more information than the human brain can handle. Even those of us whose brains thrive on a firehose of information are overwhelmed. Everything I just cited is true, but very few people have the ability to distinguish those true things out of the noise of disinformation coming at them.
I have learned that Americans mistrust those who are best positioned to help us out of the mess we’ve made of our life on earth.
And this is just … true. I am devastated that most Americans have no understanding of what it takes to become an eminent scientist or how the scientific process works. What it takes to build a newsroom that strives to tell the truth. What it takes to understand the complexity of our country’s legal structure and find ways to improve it. What it takes to be a good teacher. What it takes to build and run a responsible company. What it takes, even, to be an informed voter.
I’m sorry this can’t be more positive in a week when I know that you, my women listeners and woman-ally listeners, need encouragement. All I can say is that what I am feeling is not discouragement. It’s not surrender. It’s not even lack of hope.
I think what I’m feeling is generalized rage that will have to filter slowly out of each and every one of my cells. I hope when it does, at the very least, it is neutralized. But what I really hope is that once my exhausted body, my exhausted mind, has processed this rage and confusion over what has been done to us by only around one third of eligible voters, I feel stronger and more hopeful on the other end.
I want to believe that Americans can value women, value decency, value parents, value well-educated experts, value each other, value America.
Thanks for listening.
“Bred for the Bounty” is by Unwoman. Please support independent musical artists.