Unwelcome Dental Advice

I can say with all honesty that there are very few things on this earth that “scare” me: Spiders, but specifically any spider bigger than a nickel. The small ones, like jumping spiders and whatnot, don’t really trigger that anxiety in me, but the larger ones do because of an incident when I was living in the dormitories at Tinker, and I woke with a large spider on my chest. Sharks and large bodies of open water scare me, especially after drowning and being saved, and because my dad made us watch Jaws on our first night in Florida, the day before we were supposed to see beaches for the first time in our lives. And finally, the current political situation in the United States.

I’ve had a day to stew on the election results. Harris has conceded victory to Trump, and we’re in it for another four years. You’d think we’d be used to this type of thing, but there are so many points to consider when you look at the outcome. The sensationalist writer in me wants to write about wild ideas of fascist government and dictatorship, or living in a Handmaid’s Tale style dystopia, but I’m choosing to hold onto hope. That said, let’s consider some very real possibilities with four more years of Donald Trump.

The first thing that comes to mind is his stance on mass deportation. I can’t help but wonder what a lot of Latino voters were thinking when they knowingly voted for a candidate that has promised he would deport upwards of 25 million illegal and legal immigrants. Did they really think it couldn’t possibly happen to them? Just because you’ve been here for five decades doesn’t make you safe from the wrath of a xenophobic country. If you voted for this administration and you get sent away, that’s on you.

Abortion and LGBTQ+ rights are another talking point. This is the liberal bread and butter, and to be quite honest, I wish they (read: Kamala) would have toned it down a notch on this topic. You don’t need to convince the left on these matters. We’re all in already. I want my gay and lesbian friends to still be married when this is all over. I want trans people to continue to have access to the medical facilities that help them transition and maintain their current lifestyle. I want people to have access to safe abortion for whatever reasons they may need it. You’ve already got my vote for those reasons. Convincing millions of “working class citizens” of that isn’t what’s going to win you an election. Stick to what they want to hear.

Because of this blunder, my gay friends may have their marriages nullified, trans people might lose access to healthcare, and abortions will likely be banned outright, or made so nearly impossible to get that they’ll be performed in basements somewhere illegally, causing a whole other slew of health concerns. And then there’s these chuckleheads: https://www.reddit.com/r/NewMexico/comments/1gljtuw/women_were_being_harassed_on_campus_at_unm_today/ There are already conservative hardliners out there harassing women about going back to where they belong and saying shit like “your body, my choice – always.” People will die because of these conservative ideologies, and it’s our fault for not pushing issues that the “average joe” sees as a primary concern.

On the subject of people dying in large numbers, what about Ukraine and Palestine? Ukraine has been holding onto hope for some time now, but one of the things Trump has flirted is ejecting the US from NATO, a commitment we’ve held since 1949. That’s 75 years of working with allies across the seas, and he’s wanting to throw that away because we’ve paid our way when other countries have not. This could almost certainly spell doom for Ukraine as Putin would pull out the big guns. Let’s not forget that Elon Musk, one of Trump’s largest (and richest) supporters, initially donated a bunch of Starlink terminals to Ukraine for use in their efforts against Russia, but then changed his mind, hoping that the Pentagon would foot the bill for them. And when Russia stole and hacked several Starlink terminals, Musk refused to cut off their access. I did a research paper on this for college, and it’s crazy how quickly Musk went from a positive force for change in the US to a conservative shill. What do they have on him, I wonder?

And then there’s Palestine/Gaza. This has been a touchy subject for a lot of people. Long have we been an ally of Israel, selling arms and warplanes to them, but the recent bombings of innocents in Gaza just to get at terrorist cells is appalling. I stood with Harris on the idea that what Netanyahu was doing to Palestine was morally horrid, but I also agree with the centrists that it was a stupid fucking hill to die on. Condemn the actions, but not the ally. This lost the left a lot of votes.

I could go on, but I’m not a political analyst or media writer. I’m just a concerned citizen who has researched the broad spectrum of US politics. It’s funny, when I was younger, I couldn’t be arsed to give two fucks about American politics. I was in the military, and I simply did what was expected of me. So long as I was getting paid and fed, it didn’t matter. But now I see the consequences of voting, or not voting, and how they can cause chain reactions in our country and others.

Again, I don’t want to sensationalize the possible futures this country can experience, and the writer in me really wants to. Making wild accusations about us becoming a Christian nationalist country where straight white men have all the power and anyone who has a fleeting opposing idea is the enemy is something I’ll leave for Margaret Atwood. I choose to have hope, because as Jyn Erso in Rogue One said, “rebellions are built on hope.” And make no mistake, the democratic party will need to be in fully open rebellion should things go horribly wrong.