Dear god, I already feel everyone in my circle fleeing in horror. When I sign back onto Facebook, I will discover I've been unfriended en mass. If I hadn't already stepped away from my Unitarian Universalist church, I'd be shunned on Sunday morning. (Not really -- they are a very welcoming group, but they'd be shocked nonetheless.) My bonafides -- Progressive, Liberal, Feminist, Peace-Loving, Diversity-Embracing banner-carrier -- are now called into question and found wanting at best, lies at worst. I fear being drummed out of the Resistance.
But you see, this admission also allows me to take a long, hard look at my own judgementalism. (Is that a word? Well, it seems another "ism" to fight against.)
I have railed against, denigrated, and blamed every single person who voted for the current president for their ability to accept, or overlook, certain aspects of his demonstrably piss-poor character and outrageous racism and misogyny. I still hold some blame toward those who were "I hate Hillary enough to vote for an unfit, unhinged, inexperienced reality show host to lead our country". And toward those who STILL support him, after the year of living dangerously we've just endured, I am speechless and we can probably find zero common ground, ever, on this topic.
But to those who were willfully, lazily, ignorant; I guess I offer grudging understanding. Been there, done that.
I first knew of Richard Nixon during the 1960 election year, when I was just shy of 10 years old. I'd spent the campaign cycle amongst my fellow 4th graders, whose parents were predominantly former "I Like Ike" Republicans and just transferred their allegiance to Nixon. I recall only one little girl in my class who was "for Kennedy". She was seen as weird and sort of exotic, even after JFK visited our blue collar factory town whose visit, in my family, was characterized as merely an annoying traffic tie-up downtown. We little girls even gave our Girl Scout leader the endearing nickname, "Nikki" -- short for Nixon!
My parents never discussed politics; I didn't have a clue where they stood on the issues. I just knew we were Republicans -- like every single other person I knew except that one little girl. Nixon lost in 1960 (robbed by that scoundrel Daley, mayor of the big, bad city an hour east of us). But he went on to win in '68 and it just seemed natural. I grew up with the idea that Richard Nixon was Presidential.
In the 60's I had awakened to the horror of the Vietnam War, which seems awful, but I didn't really question it or take the initiative to understand it. I was drawn to the appeal of the "hippie culture" and flirted with that by listening to "psychedelic" pop music, wearing bell-bottoms, hanging out with long-haired guys, and smoking a bit of weed. I'd come to find the Kennedy clan exciting and good-looking and I watched Bobby Kennedy with some modicum of budding interest in politics. I cried when he was killed and the world seemed to be moving out of it's familiar orbit. But mostly my life was still comfortably conservative, small town, and unworldly. I did not "fight the man".
So when Nixon ran in 1972, I was a month shy of turning 22 and four months into being a newlywed. I had mostly left my counter-culture flirtation behind and turned my concerns to "keeping house" like a grownup and perfecting a chicken fried steak recipe prepared in my new avocado green electric frying pan in the yellow-walled kitchen of our second story walk-up apartment. I was also on a bowling league.
Still, I was excited to vote for the first time (voting age was still 21 then). The polling place for our precinct was, oddly, in the basement of a private home as I recall -- that does seem weird, but it's how I remember it now. I stepped up to the voting booth, closed the privacy curtain, and voted for Richard Nixon, because he was already president, so he must be a good one and he'd been around most of my life, so yeah....that was that. I never gave it another thought.
Until late 1973. We'd moved by then into Chicago for Hub's med school adventure. I was working as a secretarial clerk at the medical center, a virtual United Nations of docs from all over the world. I also started college for the first time at age 23. The world around me suddenly went from black and white to color. YOWZA! There was so much to learn! By the time Nixon resigned in 1974, I had a year of college under my belt, was a newly-minted Democrat, liberal, feminist and cheered his departure with my supervisor, sitting in front of a small TV she'd brought into the office for the occasion. She was my first political teacher and I was the model student at her knee.
Was I willfully ignorant in 1972 or just disinterested? That's where it gets tricky in my judgementalism. I think disinterested ignorance, especially in this day and age of internet access to a wide variety of thought, opinion, and information is willful. These days ya gotta actively avoid being educated about the political landscape and that is a choice.
But didn't I make the same choice in 1972? I was so immersed in my own life of work, friends, and newlywed-ness; so surrounded by a conservative, Republican community; so sheltered from diversity; so immune to critical thinking, that I just went along. I may have glanced at the one local newspaper and may have switched on Walter Cronkite in the evening, but none of it seemed relevant to me. I was working my way through my new Betty Crocker cookbook and trying to improve my bowling average.
So, I get it. I get that some people are still just like I was at a certain point in their lives and since I forgive myself, I have to forgive them too. Immaturity, self-absorption, and/or lack of experience in the wider world all contribute to choices that later on seem impossible, even grossly embarrassing.
My optimism comes in the form of hope that just as I found an awakening through education, experience, exposure to diversity, and even maturity, others will too. They will discover that an informed and active populace, with critical thinking skills, is essential to a functioning democracy.
I'm not saying everyone will follow my lead and vote Democratic. But my FIERCE OPTIMISM is that the disinterested will awaken and that never again will the voters elect a wholly unqualified, dangerous, authoritarian-wanna-be to the White House, nor tolerate those who prop him up for their own (and their corporate donors) self-interest. Be a Republican if you must, but be a good one.
At least, that's the view from here...©
