This is Not Political

The night Trump was declared president is burned into my memory.

I felt an anxiety I had never felt before – a feeling of doom deep inside. I drank an entire bottle of wine. Walking home, I suddenly and furiously smashed my sword-shaped umbrella to pieces – hating the childish fetishization of violence it stood for. From that moment – until just today – my entire soul held its breath; for four years.

It wasn’t just that another Republican had been elected president of the United States. There is a difference between disagreeing with someone’s politics and finding them to be hateful, deceitful, prejudiced, and incompetent. Sure, part of the fervent, panicked objections of liberals over the past four years was about the politics, but 90% of it was about the hate, the lying, the prejudice, and the incompetence.

These things are not political.

People – regardless of their colour, their orientation, their culture, etcetera – deserve to live in a society where they are not targeted by hate or discriminated against because of their identity. That is not political.

People deserve for their politicians to tell the truth as best as possible. Not being able to keep a campaign promise after trying, or differences of opinion, or correcting oneself after the fact because one was relayed incorrect information – well, that’s life. Lying through your teeth or deliberately spouting conspiracy bullshit that can’t be verified is something else. This is not political.

Citizens deserve to know that their government is working to serve their basic needs regardless of who those particular citizens voted for. A leader doesn’t punish the citizens who disagree with them – a leader builds bridges to those citizens. This is not political.

And people deserve a leader who has spent their entire life preparing to lead. Someone who has demonstrated a commitment to serving the public, doing the research to make the best possible decisions, admitting their mistakes and being accountable without ego or bitterness. Someone with character. This is not political.

But most of all, MOST of all, a leader needs to accept the will of the people. A leader needs to be willing to defend democracy with their life. They need to accept the results of elections even when they don’t agree with them. This is not political.

Which is why this is not over.

For these four years I have watched our entire species teetering on the brink. I lived in a constant state of anxiety. I spent sleepless nights wondering what would get us: a climate disaster, World War 3, the pandemic, a fascist takeover, or more than one of the above. So, just because we have – by the slimmest margins – decided not to take that final fateful step off a cliff, does not mean we are safe. We need to walk away from that precipice.

That’s why anyone who disagrees with the outcome of the U.S. election needs to understand: Liberals aren’t going to let this go. We aren’t going to forget these four years. We can’t forgive how many people supported Trump at the end.

We are not going to forget people feeling free to show their hatreds proudly – Hurling racial slurs in public. This is not political.

We are not going to forget all the news outlets which drank the Q-Anon conspiracy Kool-Aid and fabricated lie-after-unverifiable-lie to try and gum up the works of thoughtful discourse. This is not political.

We are not going to forgo justice upon the people who separated children – toddlers – from their parents to put them in cages, or subjected them to the most unspeakable abuses. This is not fucking political.

We are not going to tolerate disbelief and skepticism of science and knowledge at the point in Human civilization where we have more knowledge and more access to data for making decisions than ever before. This is not political.

And we will sure as hell not forget the supporters of an outgoing president who – upset with the results of an election – literally gathered in intimidating mobs to chant “Stop the vote”. Democracy is not fucking political – It is not fucking negotiable.

So, those who expect liberals to finally chill out after this victory should instead expect liberals to be completely insufferable. We must be. Because none of this is political. These are the fucking fundamentals of democracy.

Those who perpetrated these crimes against democracy need to be held accountable. Not by violence. Not by intimidation. Not always by jail. However, people who ardently supported Trump and his lies and his hatred should not expect liberals to “BUILD BRIDGES” to them. There is no “middle ground” to be found here. Because this is not political. This is the bare minimum of human decency. These are the fundamentals of democracy. These are objective truths and scientific facts. This is the law as written. Without those things, we’re not democratic societies – There are no presidents or leaders: just mobs and gangsters and strongmen.

Those who find themselves shunned or shouted down or summarily (and gloriously) told to fuck off have an easy recourse: recognize the harm you have caused, recant your views, admit you were wrong, and apologize. Why? Because this is not political. You have put real people in danger. It will not be tolerated anymore.

Because hurting people is not fucking political.

Afterword: I’m hyperaware that there’s so much I more I could I could have included here – so much more horrible depth I could have plumbed. That’s because our democratic societies were in poor shape before Trump was elected president of the US. Police reform, overt support of racist groups, the pandemic, publicly mocking a disabled reporter, attacks on LGBTQIA+ protections, how much closer we are to catastrophic climate disaster… I could go on for hours. But we’re already endured it. All this means is that there’s so much more work to do. Some of it is political, but every citizen of a democracy feeling safe and – at the very least – not hated for who they are, is not political.

Rainbow photo by wirestock via www.freepik.com