Reaping the Authentic Results

On this third day after the election, I’m tired of hearing that racism, misogyny, and xenophobia had nothing to do with Donald Trump’s election.  This boggles my mind. The guy openly ran on a platform of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia. That is some ugly, ugly stuff, so I can see why we’d all (whether we voted for him or not) like to conveniently and quickly dismiss it by sweeping it under the rug of jobs and authenticity and desire for change. But in the few days since the election, it’s fairly clear we’re not going to be able to do that.

If Trump’s victory had nothing to do with racism, misogyny, and xenophobia, how do we explain the bold, public display of those hateful behaviors across the nation in the past couple of days? Threatening notes left on the homes and cars of gay families, shouts of “go back where you came from” as people of color simply try to go to class or commute to work, swastikas painted on dugouts where our children play baseball, Muslim women physically assaulted, “black lives don’t matter and neither do your votes” scrawled across public spaces, school children openly chanting “build that wall, build that wall!” while their Latino classmates cry – the uptick (and I think that might be too gentle a word) in hate speech and crimes is crystal clear. Trump openly encouraged this behavior throughout his campaign and at his rallies; now we’re reaping the results.

I do not assume the people committing these vile acts represent everyone who cast a ballot for Trump. In fact, I’m positive that isn’t true. People I know voted for Trump. People I like very much voted for Trump. I’m fairly certain people I dearly love voted for Trump. My sadness and anger at the outcome of this election will not cause me to turn my back on these people. I certainly won’t stop loving friends and family who voted for Trump and I don’t intend to “unfriend” anyone who voted for Trump – unless, of course, they make it clear to me through hateful words and behaviors that they are of the ilk who find it acceptable to belittle and terrorize, and to bring that despicable behavior into the public spaces of my community. Sadly, there have already been a few of those.

Like many people who are vehemently opposed to Trump, I’m experiencing quite a bit of dissonance, trying to reconcile Trump’s hateful messages with the good people who voted for him. My coping mechanism has been reading everything I can get my hands on – I’m wading through information and opinion pieces from a wide range of sources and ideologies, hoping to gain insight. Much of what I find leads me on tangents of further questions and confusion as I read words like “authenticity” and sentiments like “he tells it like it is.”

My good friend Merriam-Webster defines “authentic” as real or genuine, not copied or false, true and accurate. While the dictionary definition doesn’t suggest a value judgment – it doesn’t say authenticity is inherently good or bad – we generally apply the term to “good” things: Authentic New York-style pizza – yum!  Authentic Rolex watch or Louis Vuitton bag – no knock-offs here! She is such an authentic person – no pretense! But can’t authentic things also be bad? Do we always want people to say exactly what they’re thinking? Sometimes I see someone wearing what I consider to be an unattractive outfit. I may have a snarky thought like, “What was that person thinking when they got dressed!?” But I would never openly mock; I would be horrified if the person could somehow hear my unkind thought. I keep it where it should be – to myself. Does that make me inauthentic or does it just make me a kind human being, participating in the maintenance of a civil society?

Maybe Donald Trump truly believes all the horrible things he has said about women, people of color, and differing religions; it certainly seems like he does, based on his documented behavior. In that case, I suppose he fits the dictionary definition of “authentic,” but we shouldn’t be celebrating that as a good thing. Is it acceptable to be an awful human being as long as you’re open, even boastful, about it? Some things are better kept quiet. Didn’t all of our parents teach us, “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all?” That old adage is arguably simplistic but it gets at the root of an important societal truth – there must be parameters and norms around words and behaviors if we expect to maintain a functioning society.  

I’ve also considered that perhaps Donald Trump doesn’t really believe all the hate he spews, and I’m not sure if that’s better or worse. It would certainly tarnish the “authenticity” that many voters seem to value in him if he was just spinning a storyline to whip the truly racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic into an activated frenzy. In my more optimistic moments, I hope it would mean perhaps he’ll change his tune now that he’s been elected. Maybe he’ll dial it back a bit. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s so easy to close the lid of the awful Pandora’s Box he’s opened, authentically or not. 

While many of Trump’s voters don’t support or participate in racist, misogynistic, or xenophobic behavior, they do own the inevitable results of Trump’s election, and I hope with all my heart they will not sweep it under a rug, that they will acknowledge it and stand up with me to fight against it.  

This Post-Election Morning

This morning, as I walked the block and a half from my car to my office, a man leaned out of his car window, whistled and said “Nice!” as he drove by. This happens fairly frequently, but today felt different. Leering catcalls are always annoying and disconcerting, but this morning, the day after my country elected a truly vile human being who regularly demeans and degrades women, and brags about violence against female bodies, it felt downright terrifying. It didn’t feel like one asshole in a truck; it felt like the whole country making me nothing more than an object, staring me right in the face and letting me know full well that my success, happiness, and safety depend completely on whether or not the guys in the trucks decide to keep on driving today or to stop and do whatever they feel like doing.

When I was a little girl, I was told I could grow up to do and be anything. I was raised to believe that I was lucky to be growing up in such a time. Unfortunately, that optimistic sentiment didn’t line up with the reality I faced. I wanted to play drums in the school band… Nope, the choices for girls were flute or clarinet. I wanted to grow up to be a fighter pilot… Oh no, girls can’t ever do that! When I was 8 or 9 years old, a friend’s mother overheard us talking about what we wanted to study when we went to college. She told us we were being ridiculous, that we should focus on finding  good husbands instead, and that if we weren’t married by the time we were 18 all the “good men” would be gone. When I came back to work after three months of maternity leave, a male superior who I admired and respected asked me how I was enjoying motherhood. I told him it was wonderful, interpreting his nodding head and smiling face as signs that he was fondly recalling the early months with his own children; but I watched his smile turn to a confusing smirk as he said, “One of my mentors always told me ‘Never hire a woman of child-bearing age.’”

Like most women, I could write a book filled with sexist anecdotes ranging from the sort that would be funny if they weren’t so annoying to those that are outright scary and appalling. So forgive me if I’m having trouble embracing the sentiment that this is politics-as-usual. I don’t think there’s anything “usual” about electing a man who proudly displays a clear and vehement distain for women as anything other than sex objects. How have we elected a man who is absolutely unqualified to hold the highest leadership position in our nation? A man who incites violence against those who don’t agree with him? A man who belittles and attacks anyone who isn’t just like him?

How in the world could any woman have voted for the King of Catcalling Assholes in Trucks? Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright has said “There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." I think there might be an even deeper, more “special” place for women who voted for Donald Trump.

I’m tired of hearing that it’s because voters in more rural areas feel disenfranchised – that their way of life is being left behind. I grew up in very rural America – small towns in Arizona and Oregon – so I understand the issues. What I don’t understand is how hate, bigotry, and ignorance clearly prevailed over the kindness that I knew in those communities.  Many are arguing that the disenfranchisement and frustration with Washington D.C. was felt so keenly that voters were willing to put aside or ignore all the hate Donald Trump spewed like a broken fire hydrant. I don’t buy it. You don’t get to put that aside. You can’t support Donald Trump without supporting his misogynistic, racist platform. I, like many others today, feel like I woke up in a country I didn’t know existed. I believed that goodness would outweigh frustration. I refused to believe people would be willing to burn everything good to the ground. Silly me. All I can say is, good job cutting off your nose to spite your face, America.

I don’t understand the “political outsider” appeal of Donald Trump. Being a “political outsider” means he has exactly zero qualifications to perform an extremely difficult, complex job. I’ve spent my entire career in municipal government and I find this argument baffling. I simply cannot understand why large groups of citizens (the majority even!) think it’s a great idea to have people who have no experience or understanding of what they’re doing, take on important jobs that impact the very fabric and operation of our society. If you were hiring a person to handle your company’s accounting, would you look at the resume of a biologist (brilliant as he or she may be) and exclaim, “Yes! This is the one! This candidate has no concept of standard accounting practices and procedures! She’ll bring a great fresh perspective to this job!” No, you would not. If you needed heart surgery, would you select the person who has a long and esteemed career as an artist? I mean, why not bring some new thinking to the surgery, right? Who wants a tired, old, experienced doctor who has performed thousands of successful heart surgeries! Boring!

So, as I was harassed this morning, like on so many other mornings, my heart broke a little more than usual – for myself, for all women, for racial and religious minorities, for LGBTQ people, and mostly for our children. There seems to be an outpouring from distraught parents today as we struggle with how to talk with our children about the horrifying outcome of this election. An article titled “What Do We Tell the Children?” by Ali Michael, Ph.D. (http://huff.to/2fYVG4p ) has been circulating like crazy this morning on the Facebook feeds of fellow parents and people who care about children in general.

Children are genuinely frightened. I’ve lost track of how many posts I’ve seen from parents who are attempting to comfort crying children, daughters who are fearful that they are no longer safe from physical harm, and sons who worry that bad things will happen to them or their loved ones. Beautiful little boys and girls now see that this country has picked a terrifying bully as its leader. We as adults haven’t told them that – they’ve seen and heard Donald Trump mocking disabled people, degrading women, calling people of color rapists and criminals. As the parent of a ten year old boy, as a woman, as a decent human being, I can’t begin to put to words how furious and profoundly sad this makes me.

Of course we will teach our children to keep on loving each other, to stay kind, and that we will continue to protect them. (What choice do we have?) We’ll tell them that “one bad man” can’t do that much harm all by himself; that we have a big democratic system with checks and balances. But kids are smart; they see through all kinds of bullshit. They’ve seen the “bad man” and they’ve heard him say terrible things with their own ears. They’ve seen and heard about the violence and vitriol at his rallies. They’ve been watching and they’ve been listening and now they are, understandably, scared. So much for the days when children were inspired by presidents!

The commentators kept saying this would be an historic election result no matter what – we’d either have the first female president or the first president to have never previously run for public office or served in the military. Well, I think we have another historic first… We have the first president our children are terrified of. This should tell us something, America – something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.