Democracy, 2020

I usually remain relatively quiet about political issues on Facebook.  In part, this is because when I joined Facebook (oh so long ago) I did so in order to feel personally connected to friends whom I see all too rarely, not to find a broad platform for my political views.  It’s also because there are many valid reasons for current and continual anger that don't touch me as much as they touch others, due to disparities and inequalities in our society. Thus, I need to speak less and listen more. Plus, as we all know, diving into political threads – or the comments section on pretty much anything -- can lead to despair and madness.  But I also know that at a certain point, silence makes me disengaged and complicit. 

Figuring out where and when to raise my voice is hard.  I could go so, so far into the weeds on… well, on practically everything.  Immigration?  Yeah, none of my grandparents were born in America.  Healthcare, policing, prisons, militarization?  We desperately need to take care of one another, and to learn from our own past, and from the rest of the world.  Racism, sexism, homophobia?  We have… so far to go. Wealth inequities, screwed up economic incentives, and environmental and social externalities that drive us ever further over a cliff?  Ugh.  Capitalism is a mess.

I’ve occasionally engaged, when I feel that I have direct standing in a discussion.  I’ve written about climate change, because I work as a climate scientist.  I’ve tried to apply my own personal perspective to larger issues, as I did in a blog post that linked loving ones country (while also fervently wanting to make it a better country) with the same feelings about ones children -- patriotism as parenting, if you will.  I’ve tried, ineptly, to talk about racism, sexism, immigration, the dismissal of science, the death of my own father from a tragically politicized disease that we know as COVID-19, and my own failings with regard to making any of this any better.

There’s too much to say, and I find myself overwhelmed and immobilized.  I suspect I’m not the only one.  My friends seem to be divided between those who say very little, and those who never stop saying.  I get it.  But for now, I’m going to say… just this one thing.

This November – this tumultuous and often terrible autumn, in a tumultuous and often terrible year, in a tumultuous and often terrible world -- I plan to vote.  I plan to vote for Grier Hopkins and Marna Sanford to represent me in Juneau.  I plan to vote for Alyse Galvin and Al Gross to represent me in DC.  And I plan to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to represent our nation to the rest of the world.  I will be casting these votes with all my heart.  I will also entreat everyone else I know – and anyone else I don’t know -- to do the same.  I will also beg everyone to do their best to flip the Senate out of its current toxic-majority condition, and to keep the House from slipping in a toxic direction.  Vote.  Please vote.  Bring others.  Persuade others.  Vote.

I entreat this for many, many reasons. I can’t possibly enumerate all of them here.  But the key point is that those reasons aren't abstract or “political” or “partisan”. Those reasons are real humans, who are suffering. They are real elements of the natural world, which once lost cannot be regained.

Do I think that all Democrats are right all the time? No, of course not. Nor do I think that of Independents, such as Gross and Galvin.  Do I think that Biden or Harris agree with all my opinions, or would always adhere to the soundest science? No, I don't -- but I do think that they respect science, that they respect human rights, and that either of them would sign into law some amazing legislation that could make it through Congress, if we have decent people in Congress to create and pass that legislation.

Remember, the President doesn't make the laws. He or she merely needs to veto the bad stuff, refrain from vetoing the good stuff, and appoint sane and honest judges who do not undermine the good stuff for decades to come.

Would I make Biden dictator? Hell, no, but that's not an insult. I wouldn’t make Harris, Gross, Galvin, Sanford, or Hopkins dictator, either.  There is no human being on the planet who agrees with me on everything, and even if there were, I would not give that person absolute power.

Democracy is messy. It involves compromises. It doesn't change as fast as it should. American democracy needs revamping in some deep, painful, and fundamental ways that involve widespread social change, economic change, and educational change -- as well as passing a lot of better laws, regulations, funding decisions, etc.

I agree that some change needs to occur "outside the system". That's the part we make by marching, by protesting, by writing, by educating ourselves and one another, by raising our voices, by having each others' backs and recognizing our joint humanity. But some change also needs to occur "within the system". That's the part we make by running for office, supporting good candidates, and simply... voting.

I am a scientist. I will keep working to try to figure out what might happen to us, if we don't clean up our act on climate change issues, and how we can adapt to the changes we've already wrought. I'll keep fighting. I'll keep bugging politicians about science, using whatever privilege, leverage, or status I have to do so. And I'll keep voting.

Vote.  Please vote.  Bring others.  Persuade others.  Vote.

 

Surviving Piggington

Among my friends and colleagues, there is a waterfall of grief and despair going on.  I’ve spent the past few days wallowing in that deluge.

I haven’t gotten over it.  I won’t really ever get over it – and that’s a good thing.  There are going to be a lot of letters to write, a lot of booths to staff, and a lot of charitable donations to make, over the next four years. I need to hold onto a kernel of outrage.  I need to promise myself that I will not let this – any of this -- become the “new normal”.

But I also need to focus my energy and channel my wrath.  Talking though these election results with two ten-year-old girls has been hell.  But it has also been good for me.  It turns out that the hopeful, optimistic truths I dug deep (REALLY deep) to offer to two distraught children are my own truths, too. 

Thus, although this list is still growing and morphing, I’ll share a few of my thoughts.

1) This election mattered A LOT.  Like, really, really, really a lot.    There are many ways in which our new President can threaten human rights and the environment, in the U.S. and worldwide.  However, our government is set up such that the President is not a dictator.  There are people who can check his actions.  We, the people, can peacefully, effectively, fight back.  This is not un-American; it is, in fact, intensely American.  Just as we are a nation of immigrants, we are also a nation of rebels, and always have been.

2) Although the President is certainly a Very Big Deal, most of what we experience in our daily lives depends not on how we are treated by the person in the White House, but how we are treated by the people who live next door… and the kids on the playground…and the folks who ring up our groceries or change our oil… and the teachers in our schools and universities. Yes, there are bigots out there, and that is horrible, but we already knew they were out there.  They were out there last week, last month, last year.  And, with the possible exception of Ku Klux Klan members, no one is 100% bigoted, and no one is 100% unbigoted.  Including me.  So, even as I’m trying to fight sexism, racism, xenophobia, and homophobia in the great big world, I’m going to try to avoid slapping labels on other people.  

3) Taking the high ground on being “informed”, like taking the high ground on being non-bigoted, feels crucial, yet shaky.  I have a PhD.  I read a lot.  I employ critical thinking skills.  But do I know everything about how to run this country?  Nope.  So while I’m going to do my damnedest to help counter misinformation in areas of my own expertise (“Anyone want to hear about climate change?  Anyone?  Anyone?”) I’m also going to try to keep learning.  And listening.

4) Even though right now it feels like we’re spiraling back to the Dark Ages, the choices of young voters and mock-voting children suggest otherwise.  Granted, I lead a privileged life.  I can’t speak for the experienced of LGBT or minority Americans.  But, heck, among locally reporting fifth-graders (in this red town in this red state), Hillary won all the electoral votes from “Narnia”, “Si-bear-ia”, and, indeed, all “states” and “territories” except for “Piggington”. 

Oh, Piggingtonites… I don’t think this is going to go any better for you than it is for the rest of us. 

The above photo depicts an exhaustive comparative literary analysis of the 1963 and 1980 editions of Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever.   My daughters report, after intense scrutiny, that the awkward amendments intended to make the anthropomorphic bunnies, cats, walruses, and worms less sexist, do not, in fact, make the book less sexist.  They have a few editorial suggestions.  They have a few suggestions about other things, too.  Lots of other things.

5) On the morning after Election Day, one of the twins asked me how old she has to be before she can run for President. 

Red, blue, purple... rainbow

“Mamaaaa!  Molly isn’t sharing …”

Lizzy’s wail was interrupted by her twin.  “You know what Mommy’s going to say.  She’s going to tell us to work it out ourselves.  And listen.  And play fair.”  Her parody of middle-aged grouchy exasperation did a fair job of making a six-year-old’s voice sound… exactly like mine.

Well, not how mine always sounds – at least, I hope not.  But it was late afternoon on Election Day, for heaven’s sake.  Weeks of punditting had pushed me to the point of just leave Mommy in peace while she stuffs this apple into a lunchbox shaped like a cartoon owl, ok?

As I slathered garlic cream cheese onto potato bread, it occurred to me that it might be unreasonable to expect my first-graders to respect differences of opinion, initiate intelligent and logical discourse, and broker civil compromises. After all, I wasn’t sure that we grownups -- We The People, we the red-and-blue electorate of the not-so-United States – had been doing such a terribly good job at any of those things, lately. 

Based on most of my political leanings, I’m a deep-indigo-blue liberal – not the bleeding-heart kind so much as the dorky-scientist kind.  I wallow in reams of statistics about the effects of climate change, or the linkages between education, reproductive rights, and female autonomy.  I desperately want America, as the supposed leader of the free world, to exemplify the same kind of logic, generosity, level-headedness, and deep compassion that I want from my kids.  I want to be governed by teamwork, not divisiveness – but, of course, as a practically-socialist left-winger, I want those teams to understand that denying someone education, health care, civil rights, or basic personal freedoms can never lead to a rich society in any sense of the word.    Is that too much to ask, I wondered? 

As I doled out peanuts into baggies and listened to too-early-to-be-useful speculation on NPR, I felt my hopes falter.  Were we doomed to squabbles, tantrums, cookie-jar-grabbing, fingers jammed in ears (“I can’t HEAR you, nyah, nyah!”) and shrieking matches based on fabricated versions of reality?  Was that red and blue map nothing more than the grownup version of “I wish I never, ever had a twin sister!”

Well, but my kids didn’t always behave like that, I reminded myself. Indeed, the bickering in the other room had died down.  It often does, these days – but I still recall my amazement the first time a twin argument (twingument?) achieved peaceful resolution without parental intervention.

The kids were three at the time, still newbies at preschool, and still unsure, at home, whether they wanted to behave like locomotives on separate tracks, or actually interact with one another.  In this instance, they were attempting to play “house” or “families” or some other proto-game that required that their motley collection of stuffed beasts and humans stand in as offspring.  “I want to be the Mommy!” A pause.  A second voice, even more irritatingly pitched: “No, I want to be the Mommy!”  Obviously, as I can attest, being the Mommy is always the most awesomest job ever.  Just as the shrieking told me that I ought to arbitrate, for preservation of intact juvenile bodily organs if not my nerves… it stopped.  “Wait,” said Molly.  “Susie* has TWO Mommies!”

Lizzy absorbed this for a couple of seconds, as if the mental calculus were more than a little taxing.  Then, in tones of joyful, breathless wonder, she concluded, “We can BOTH be the Mommy!”

Yes, it’s a little-known fact that lesbian preschool-parents can do wonders for your children’s behavior.

Now, three years later, the kids have absorbed even more of the diversity in their little orbits.  They know single parents, international adoptees, multi-racial families, and stay-at-home dads.  The doctor, the dentist, and the school principal are female.  Mommy chops wood and Daddy mops the floor. The President is black. To them, none of this is “liberal” or freighted with any sort of symbolism.  It’s not a statement of redness or blueness.  It’s not remarkable.  It’s just… normal.

I put away the lunch boxes for the next day, and tried to calm my nerves during the kids’ ice skating lesson -- even as polls closed in the eastern time zones.  I was biting my nails by seven o’clock.  Our community dinner that evening was a cacophony of shouts and laughter alternating with hushed attention to the radio and to three different internet-connected devices.  And then the results started to come in.

The kids reveled in the camaraderie while the adults reveled in the champagne.  Molly, as it turned out, had political opinions about everything from tax policies (“rich people should pay more!”) to polling practices (“we did Kids’ Voting at school, and we used computers – why don’t you?”) She went on to explain that she had voted for Obama because she thought he was a good President, and because she remembered “how happy everyone was when we got rid of Bush.”  Floored, I pointed out that she had been two years old at the time.  “So? I remember everyone at dinner was really happy,” she insisted.   Lizzy claimed to know nothing of Congress or Presidents.  But when I explained that gay marriage was an issue on the ballot in four different states, both kids were equally confused.  Wasn’t it already ok?

And, as it turned out – it was.  For the first time in American history, gay marriage was approved not by legal challenges put forth by those with a direct stake in the issue, but by millions of voters without any stake at all, other than a sense of fairness, of sharing, of listening and playing fair.  And this happened not just in one state, but in four.  No, they weren’t landslide votes.  But they happened.

I recalled, then, the elderly woman who lived up the street from my family when I was very small.  My big sister, always a history buff, interviewed Mrs. Weaver for a class project.  Sarah was eager to ask questions about specific events that this woman born in 1884 might recall.  How did she feel, for example, when, at the semi-ancient age of 36, she was finally granted the right to vote?

I can still see the old woman half-shrugging, smiling her mostly-blind smile, and saying simply, “I went out and voted.”

Sometimes change feels like an epiphany.  Often it’s the culmination of years of struggle, and a victory over years of oppression.  For those at the front lines, there is agony and joy.  But at the same time, I realized on Election Day, change also happens in the background, so quietly that no naysayers or Tea Partiers can do anything about it. 

Most of the Americans who voted for Barack Obama were white.  A whole lot of male-type-folks in New Hampshire (with chest-hair! and testosterone!) decided that they wanted to be represented in D.C. by folks with nary a Y-chromosome among them.  And almost a hundred years ago, all of the people who chose to give women the vote – albeit after decades on hardship and unremitting work by the suffragettes – were men.  We no longer question five-day work weeks or the concept of “retirement.”  Last century’s Extremely Controversial Liberal Cause is this century’s yawn.

I thought about who, among all my Facebook friends, seems to post the most messages in favor of gay rights.  The two that sprang to mind are not the most irreligious of my clan, nor the most politically liberal. In fact, neither is either left- or right-affiliated.  Neither is gay.  But, at less than 25 years old, they are the youngest of the contingent.  To them, I suspect, gay rights are not red or blue or even rainbow-hued.  They are just… normal. 

Yeah, it may be a long wait, with lots of ups and downs.  Yeah, things may sometimes get ugly and divisive.  But, over the long haul, I think We The People are learning to share… and work it out ourselves… and listen… and play fair.

*not her real name, but you two mommies know who you are, and I never DID say thank you…