I have PTSD from the last election. Don’t you? Remember how Hillary had a 90% of chance of winning and how joyous it felt to vote for the first woman president and how the NY Times needle suddenly went 90% the other way? As you look at the ballot now and fill in that bubble for Biden, don’t you remember crying all night?
I have PTSD from that night and all the nights since as everything we feared came true (and worse) and no one with any power to do anything about it did anything about any of it. We all have watched and marched and despaired as no one has done anything again and again.
I live way out in the country. Which means that October brings in the delight of migrating geese and ducks and the constant sound of gunfire from hunters. Our state is solidly blue. The Republican running against the sitting Democratic governor is running on a platform of tearing down the twin tyrannies of mask wearing and gun restrictions.
He’s trailing significantly in the polls. And yet as I drive around the back roads near my house, you would think he was going to win in a landslide. Houses everywhere have huge billboard-size signs in their yards emblazoned with his name.
Sure, he’ll lose and Trump will lose (she writes hopefully) but so many of my neighbors are so passionate about supporting racism and selfishness and stupidity. And that’s not something that goes away with an election.
I feel the 2016 election PTSD every time I drive by one of those billboard-size yard signs for the anti-mask candidate. You would think that apocalypse anxiety would be all-consuming but, no. There’s always room for more anxiety, more sadness.
The country road I live on is more hopeful. A few months ago, a huge Trump sign went up in someone’s yard. One by one, the surrounding houses have been adding Biden signs, Black Lives Matter signs, any functioning adult 2020 signs. The house directly across the street from the Trump sign now has at least four signs supporting Biden.
I fill in the bubble on my ballot but I don’t feel joy, just determination.