On election blowback...

an open letter to Rachael and other disaffected former friends

I posted a request on my Facebook, directed at those of my ‘Friends’ that voted for Trump, to please quietly unfriend me and we might remain (superficial) ‘friends.’ I received the following from a woman who grew up living next door to us, who babysat on my children occasionally, and whose daughter I encouraged in her love of horses:

“This makes me sad that I’ve known you most of my life and bc i exercised my right to choose and my choice doesn’t agree with yours that we should no longer be friends. Quietly go, no. I’ll tell you i love you first. I hope this brings you peace. And know that i never devalued you. The very opposite. Take care. Always my love.”

What part of Trump’s policy led you to vote for him and against your fellow Americans?

His vow to destroy the Department of Education? The same department that oversees things like equality between boy’s and girl’s sports? The same department that ensures that children with special needs, like mine, are treated the same as others? The department that ensures a separation of church and state in our public schools? Or maybe you just wanted to see the collapse of our public school system? Do you like the idea of your tax dollars being used to pay for religious schools? Hope you enjoy paying for classes at the Church of Satan!

Did you vote for him because he declared he’d use the federal government to go after his detractors? Unlike the lies that were told about the supposed ‘weaponization’ of government taking place currently, he really WILL weaponize the government to persecute and punish those who spoke out against him.

Maybe it was his flip-flopping on the abortion issue? You’d rather your two beautiful girls be at the mercy of politicians should their lives be endangered by problematic pregnancy? That’s the one I have the hardest time understanding, why you would vote to imperil your own girls.

Or, were you happy to see a non-medical person, a vaccine opponent, a person who said COVID was developed to kill black people, in charge of the public health? You are really ready to have polio make a come-back? I was in the first cohort to receive the polio vaccine - as a result, my mother didn’t have to keep me inside and away from public places in the summer when polio transmission was at its highest. You do realize that iron lungs aren’t made any more, right? How do you think those who contract polio will survive?

I think the worst betrayal, for me as a sexual assault survivor, was your vote for an adjudicated sexual predator to lead our country. You actually want a man convicted of sexually assaulting a woman to be the leader of our entire nation. A bigger slap in the face of survivors, I cannot imagine.

Yes, you CHOSE. Your choice, however, is diametrically opposed to everything I taught my children. Truth, honesty, fairness, respect for women, empathy, the rule of law, compassion for our fellow man, and the need to give back... you voted against all that. You voted to put a known liar, sexual predator, fraudster, thief, narcissist, mentally deficient, decaying simulacrum of a human being in a position to destroy democracy.

It goes far further than the tariffs that will raise the prices on the drugs I need to survive. It goes further than the devastation caused America’s farmers when his vaunted mass deportations take place. And the destruction of families, the deportation of actual American citizens, the revocation of the citizenship granted certain immigrants, and the removal of people whose countries are so dangerous that asylum here was their only option for survival. You voted for all of this and feel that *I* am being unkind? Please look into your mirror and ask yourself if you really, truly thought this through to its inevitable conclusion.

Yes, you made a choice. Your choice, however, tells me that you care nothing for your fellow man. That the women, children, and babies dying in the Middle East mean nothing to you. That you will be fine with higher grocery prices, fewer fresh fruits and vegetables, fewer regulations in the meat processing industry, and more widespread death and disease. Your choice says that you could not care less about women dying from miscarriages, children being forced to carry the results of rape and incest, and a whole new generation of abandoned kids. Your choice told me that you don’t care about children going hungry, shoeless, coatless.

Either you willingly signed on for all of the above, or you truly do believe the alternative reality spread by Fox, RSBN, Newsmax, and the like. Whichever is the case, I can no longer even pretend that this is a mere difference of opinion. This is a difference of life views, of morals, of ethics. Are you friends with mass murderers and rapists? Are you buddies with people who are friends with rapists? Why do you think I could close my eyes to what your choice means for our country?

Or do you really and truly believe that there was no difference between the two candidates? Do you REALLY, truly believe that Trump is a moral paragon? That everything his former administration said about him is a huge lie? Do you realize that when a majority of people say one thing and only a few say the other, one side is lying to you? Generals who worked CLOSELY with him told us what to expect. And you made your choice based on... what?

He has now nominated a man to be Ambassador to Israel who says that there is no such thing as a Palestinian. He has named a man credibly accused of sexual exploitation of a MINOR child to be our top lawyer, charged with “faithfully” executing our laws. He has named a man who wants to use the US military on our own citizens, in violation of the Posse Comititus Act to be the ‘Border Czar.’ He’s tapped a PUPPY KILLER to lead the Department of Human Services. How does any of this sit right with you? How do you sleep at night? And you chide me for asking you to walk away quietly from an association that evidently meant nothing to you. I do not, nor will I ever, understand your conception of “love.” I can’t comprehend what it takes to so completely abandon all morals, ethics, or civic pride.

I just can’t.