election

Does it have to be Election Fraud Fantasies or Blaming Each Other?

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Illustration, “Fantasy on the Art of the Deal of the Steal,” (11 x 15) watercolor, pen and ink on paper.

Apparently the internet is exploding with election fraud conspiracy theories from the Left. “‘By 8am ET, the number of posts per hour had surged to 31,991,” PeakMetrics wrote in an analysis shared with WIRED.” (WiRED, Nov 6, 2024)

Who’d have thought, huh?

I guess folks would rather blame a convicted felon, serial liar, racist misogynist, and his billionaire sidekick, owner of a vast media empire freely used to spread misinformation, citing their association with Russian hackers — than, you know, turn and blame each other for this election loss.

I can understand that sentiment. People are in pain. We want to find reasons. We want to still believe in the unity we witnessed during the campaign–that it is NOT an illusion. We don’t want to believe it might not be as effective or as widespread as we thought. So there must be another illusion out there…. we think.

Too bad that questioning election results has been a rallying cry of the far-right for so long that we made an oath of office accepting the election returns no matter what. Too bad for voters that election results denial is associated with a lack of trust in democracy, associated with believing in ancient aliens, or lone gunmen, or other conspiracy theories that have no evidence, and just not acceptable to right-minded people. Too bad that even the hint of the question may give the far-right more ammo in their distrust of government.

And nobody wants to do that. So we must tread carefully when understanding where we are.

But blaming each other for Trump’s win, or stigmatizing marginalized groups of voters, or criticizing Harris or Biden or Democrats in general is not the answer either. I’ve been seeing too much of that lately and it’s ripping the Left to pieces; it’s destroying the coalition of joy and those wanting to create a better society from within. Yes, society must change to be better for everyone. We have to build that, but we need each other intact, not bloody on the election floor.

We already built a strong coalition. I saw that. You saw that. We have to maintain that coalition. I saw the future I’d hoped for being created across America these last few months. I still believe it’s there. It was YOU. You were building that. It still exists.

Keep being kind to each other in these uncertain times. We need each other. We can’t let ourselves be divided even more.

I only hope that one day neither party ever figures out how to hack those machines (like they hack banks and credit card companies so easily) because, in our pride, in our sanctimonious belief that we are impervious to being fooled and our machines are hack-proof, and that we aren’t the kinds of people who believe in conspiracies, we won’t be able to allow any Dorothy to pull that curtain back.

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(this is a revision to a previous post)

My Mother, My New Club, and the Swastika on my Shoes

jstueart5 Comments

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I first saw this picture through Natalie Laurel on Facebook.  She advocates turning the swastikas we are seeing into other things. 

It was 1978.  I was in fourth grade. I wanted to belong to something so badly. I was invited into my first club at school. Now, understand, our family had been Navy for 20 years, so in my young life, we moved around a lot–every year, sometimes. I had already lived 6 places on two coasts, and I was 9. So being invited into a club was a huge thing! It meant I was accepted–even as an outsider–even in a new small town in Missouri. A beautiful town.

I don’t know if it was a joke played on me, or not, this club–this acceptance. If it was real, then it gives me chills now. “Yes, you can be in our club,” an older boy said, someone who was in seventh grade, maybe. He was so tall. And I was so hungry for acceptance. He knelt down and he drew something on the front of my shoes. The new symbol for our club, he said.  When I went home that day, I said, “Mommy, I’m in a club! I’m in a club!” And I must have been beaming with that acceptance.

My mother took one look at my shoes–the only pair of shoes I had for school because we didn’t have a lot of money. And it was in ink, this thing. The boy had drawn a swastika on each of my shoes. I thought it was a cool club symbol because I was young, but my mother saw it for what it was.  She was shocked.  She knelt down to look at it.  She could not erase it–she must have known it would show up anyway. So she carefully made it a box, a four squared box. I was upset that she had done that–at first. I don’t remember if I cried, or tried to stop her–She was ruining the club symbol! She was marking on my shoes! — I’m sure I put up a little fight. “No honey. Not this symbol,” was what she said to me. “I don’t want you in that club.” I don’t know if she explained to me what that symbol meant–I think she must have tried.  But I can’t remember.  I did it for my mom more than for my fourth grade understanding of hate symbols.  It meant so much to my mom, that I didn’t pursue that club.  I don’t even remember if the club was really a club, or some cruel joke they were playing on me. I never saw any club meetings, any groups with swastikas on their arms or shoes. Never.

My shoes had a foursquare box on them for the rest of fourth grade. I made up a new club for people with glasses, and I forgot about the old club. We had three guys in the glasses club.

It’s our job to not let little children (or anyone) have to see that symbol everywhere.  Even if they don’t understand why.  This symbol is getting a revival.  If you see it, be vandals and change it.  Don’t let that symbol stay.  It’ll burn into the walls.  It’ll burn into our minds.  Turn the swastikas into boxes, Windows Logos, or brightly-colored boxes. Turn them into pinwheels, gift boxes, chessboards.

Turn them into windows that look out onto a better America.

*thank you, Mom.

 

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(this post was inspired by Natalie Laurel’s Facebook photo of the Windows logo shared by many. I know the original might be photoshopped, but buy a can a paint anyway, eh? )

Have You Met Liz? —the Importance of Meeting Your Candidates

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I haven’t been to a political rally before.  I went to the NDP rally just to see what they were like, and because I had met Liz Hanson.

Meeting a candidate makes a difference.  Perhaps you, candidate, wonder what all that door knocking is for—or you, a citizen, are annoyed by all the door knocking that happens around an election.  You both wonder why anyone really does it.  Don’t all the commercials, all the posters, all the op-ed pieces help you know a candidate?  Doesn’t it make you likely to know how to vote?  Nope.  (Ok, sometimes it has to.  Not every person can meet the Presidential or Prime Minsterial candidate.  I voted for Obama from what I read, what I saw on TV, watching him at rallies, in speeches, at town halls.)

Meeting someone changes our minds.  Most of us cannot be changed purely by intellectual discovery—some a-ha moment that gives us the clarity to change our minds about an issue.  Most of us recall an event—a moment that has another person in it—that made us feel the way we do about that person, about their race, issue, belief, etc.

Encounters.  We change because of encounters.

Liz Hanson, NDP candidate, was canvassing somewhere between 7th and Strickland—and I was housesitting for a friend.  She knocked on my door and told me who she was and what she was doing.  I politely told her that I was an immigrant and therefore not allowed to vote in the election.  Seriously, I’m not proud of that:  immigrants should be involved in politics, in understanding and learning about their new country, even if they currently don’t have a vote.  But, frankly, I probably felt a little indignant about the irony of being canvassed when I don’t have a vote—I probably thought that she would just go away if I showed my political impotence.

I mean, really.  Why would she spend her time on an immigrant without a vote?  She couldn’t reap any immediate benefit from spending time with me.

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