The Quiet Exhaustion of America
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It’s not that I believed Kamala Harris was definitely going to win. It’s that I, like so many of you, had some hope that our country is not overrun by bigots, misogynists and racists. That hoped died quickly last night.
I am tired.
Exhausted.
It’s mourning in America.
When the vote count became clear last night, all the strength left my body. Today, I am lethargic and hollowed out. I’m trying to reconcile these feelings with the glory of the autumn view from my windows — the rusty reds, golds and forest greens. The Olympic mountains in the distance, capped with snow. The glow of the sun off a nearby lake.
We are facing a future that will erode so many of the basic rights upon which America has thrived. Instead of moving toward a future in which climate change has not flooded or heated most corners of the Earth, one in which women will again have control over their own bodies and one in which people are able to seek asylum in a country once known for providing a safe haven from whatever wars and persecution they’ve fled, our future will now be — yet again — full of overt lies and harms. Oligarchs and bombasts. Money-grubbing and hatred.
I’m not saying that we necessarily had or were guaranteed all of that, no matter who won the election. It’s just that now we will have an administration that is actively fighting against basic human rights. An administration that hates scientists, journalists and anyone whose gender is outside their conception of a norm. An administration that hates people of color, women and education.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948, lays out 30 basic principles the world is meant to strive for and adopt. Here they are, in shortened form:
I was going to write about how I woke up today with no more fight in me, which is true, I did, but simply typing these words has infused some fire back into my tired hands. I can see more clearly what needs to be done.
My goal is to spend the next however long reporting on what this broken, broken-record of an administration does to destroy our rights. They will not be doing so in a vacuum, and as a member of the media, I personally plan to dedicate myself to making sure that is the case.
What will you do?
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Today was an out of body experience. I couldn't believe that half the people I interact with think he is fit to be among normal people, much less the leader of the free world. I'm not a conspiracy theory person, but I don't see how he could win North Carolina, but everybody else on the slate went blue. How did he win in Michigan along with Elissa Slotkin? They aren't the same voters.
I hope Biden in the lame duck period gives Ukraine everything there is to give and more, and pardons Hunter.
And what do now is mourn and find comfort where we can. Get outside, listen to music, read a book. Then we get up, dust ourselves off, and hold these people accountable as best we can.
I went to bed last night feeling as though I had been kicked in the stomach. No, the election of Kamala was not guaranteed, but I thought (hoped?) that the American electorate would realize the horror of another Trump administration. I kept thinking, if you discard all of the negativity that exists in Trump world, there is one particular reason for him not being elected. He has 34 felony convictions open on his record! He should be in jail, not the White House! Tells us a lot about the American voter.