And the stakes seem absolutely monumental. Not just for the United States, but for the whole world.
The best advice I’ve seen is from my former UU minister, the Reverend Fred Small. He says, “If you’re feeling anxious (or worse) about the presidential election, I recommend deep breaths, meditation, and this video released last night by the Harris campaign.”
He was right. The video makes me feel better. We’ve got some extremely competent and professional women— like Jen O’Malley Dillon and Dana Remus—running the Harris Campaign. They know what they’re doing.
My get-out-the-vote calls went pretty well today. It was actually kind of fun. I talked to left-leaning voters from Pennsylvania. Many had already voted for Kamala and were willing to reach out to friends and family to do the same. One young man from Erie County, PA told me he wasn’t just excited, he was ECSTATIC to make Kamala Harris the next President of the United States.
So why don’t I feel better? Where’s my joy? Why am I SO anxious?
Because I remember 8 years ago…
Here I am in my cute little pantsuit (which no longer fits) on November 8, 2016, heading out to help elect Hillary Clinton as our first woman president. I was so excited and happy. Joyful!
And then….
Utter despair, bitter disappointment, disbelief, and a huge amount of anger at every single person who saw fit to pull the lever for Mr. Grab-em-by-the-Pussy Donald Trump.
Tomorrow (US Election Day) is going to be rough. I’m going to wear my new KA-MA-LA t-shirt and buy some celebratory champagne, but I also have to prepare myself for the worst. I have Hillary PTSD. Of course I’m hoping against hope that it’ll be a Kamala landslide and red states will start dropping early on. (My fantasy is that Florida miraculously goes blue by 9pm.) But that’s probably not going to happen. It’s probably going to be some sort of a protracted nail biter like Biden/Trump in 2020. (It took four days from Election Day for CNN to declare Biden the winner.)
The one and only good thing about the November 8, 2016 election was that Massachusetts legalized recreational cannabis the very same night. And that is the only reason I’ve made it through the past eight years.
May the Trump Era in the United States of America end tomorrow.
I signed up for a two-hour shift making phone calls for Harris tomorrow.
A friend sent this message earlier today:
Hi everyone,
I just finished a get-out-the-vote phone bank for MoveOn.org. It involved asking voters to remind 3 friends or family members to vote. It was fun! Remember this is coming from the person who would rather chew nails than make these calls! It was easy, lots of people answered, most were friendly, many agreed to remind others and one even agreed to volunteer. I had some great conversations. The link to sign up is already below, but here it is again: https://mobilize.us/s/y58Kqy One person said she was definitely voting for “Miss Kamala,” all her family members had voted, but she would remind younger co-workers who might not otherwise vote.
There are lots of shifts left between now and the election, and it’s a great antidote to election anxiety.
Lynn (she/her/hers)
I really don’t feel like making calls, but defeating Trump is my self-professed Number One Objective of 2024. I’ve written more than 30 blog posts focused or partially focused on him. I started this blog nine years ago, exactly as Trump began his ascension. In many ways, he has been hanging over my life and my blog like a dark cloud the entire time.
So I better get off my butt and join my grandmother friends in making some calls to voters tomorrow. We gotta leave it all on the field!
If you live in the US and have some time on Monday or Tuesday, you can use this link (or the one above) to sign up:
As part of my duties as a member of my church’s Executive Team, I briefly occupied the pulpit this morning. First time!
I’m pleased to report that despite my current state of mind, I was extremely pleasant. No F-bombs were dropped. I did not make any verbal references (veiled or otherwise) to the upcoming election, although I did wear my Chuck Taylor sneakers and some pearls. And also a brat-green t-shirt.
I received a couple of knowing compliments on my sneakers and feedback that I was a “natural” up there. I consider this a win (although I did forget to say a couple of things I had planned). Next time I’m going to write my remarks in large print on an index card, instead of looking at the tiny typeface on my phone.
OK, I’ve deactivated my Facebook as a first step in trying not to care as much about the election. I’ve never done that before, but apparently it can be reactivated easily. I was just seeing way too many upsetting posts, particularly from feminist groups documenting the horrors that women in the Trump Abortion Ban States are enduring.
Also, I’m done reading The Washington Post. My husband reads it daily, so we won’t cancel it, but honestly, fuck Jeff Bezos. I’m so tired of these asshole white male billionaires and their outsized influence. And while I’m at it, fuck Joe Rogan too. Did you know that little shit is only 5’7”? I am taller than Joe Rogan. And of course, it goes without saying…FUCK ELON MUSK.
Aaaah, now that that’s off my chest…
Back to my efforts to not care about anything other than my own inner circle.
I have some fun things to look forward to:
-Luncheon today: I’m attending a ladies lunch this afternoon. (Actually, I think there’ll be one man there, but he’s cool.) The guests are all church friends of mine so there is absolutely no chance that any of them are Trumpers.
-Babysitting next weekend: My husband and I are going to babysit our adorable, perfect infant granddaughter for a few hours next weekend! I cannot wait to see that little angel again. I can already tell that having grandchildren is going to the absolute best part of being 60+.
-Book group meeting next week: I get to see one of my favorite groups of women. I am so fortunate to have this small group of book-loving friends with whom I can be completely open and always feel supported. (We are reading Solito by Javier Zamora this month and I need to finish it this weekend.)
Also, I had a realization that if Trump wins the election, I’m probably going to seek out a paid position (perhaps a part-time one). I’m going to need something else to focus on, other than the news and volunteering for lost causes. And I think I can still make some decent money in my field, which would mean more resources for the people I love.
I am not feeling good about the election today. The polls are too close.
I feel like it might be better to just expect the worse. Maybe we’re not such a great country. If we elect Trump again, it would be hard to come to any other conclusion. Maybe the country is deeply misogynistic—to the core. The fact that a second highly-qualified woman could lose to a serial sexual assaulter and convicted felon is unreal.
Maybe people really are only out for themselves.
Maybe it’s time to circle the wagons and focus only on the five other people that actually matter to me. Maybe I should put all my energy and resources into them.
Maybe the “greater good” is not real.
Maybe we’re divided for a really good reason. Maybe everyone who ever saw fit to vote for Trump should be shunned, even family members. Maybe everyone who politely demurred and never made a single public utterance against the rising tide of fascism should be forgotten. Maybe there’s not one single good thing about the other side.
Maybe I should cancel all these damn newspaper subscriptions and save the money for the six who matter.
I’m mailing my last batch of letters to voters this week. It doesn’t seem like simply asking someone to vote would have a big impact, but I think it can.
One of our favorite parts of each year is when we receive messages from letter recipients letting us and their letter writer know that they have a plan to vote. As the messages are already rolling in, we wanted to share one we received from a letter recipient in our U.S. Voters Abroad campaign!
I’m 37 and while I have always maintained my registration to vote, I knew it expired at the end of last year and I honestly wasn’t going to re-register to vote. I had no plan to vote this year at all. I’ve lost so much hope in watching how things in my home country are progressing that I caught the mindset of “my one vote won’t change anything.”
Then I received my first letter from one of your volunteers. There was a simple message in it about it being important for me to vote because all votes count. My husband looked up the process with me to register to vote. We both realized how silly it would be for me to not register and cast my vote. I filled out the documents, printed them, signed them and then they sat on my desk for too long waiting to be scanned.
A few weeks ago, I scanned them and sent them to Hillsborough County, FL to register myself to vote for the 2024 presidential election. I received my ballot last week. I received my new, valid, voter card yesterday. Today, I received a second letter from your organization and this time the message really captivated me.
The message in this letter was from Joseph W. and he mentioned he is 82 years old. He wrote how he feels it is so important for strong voter turn out in order to aid our country. He is right and I wish I could send him so much gratitude for changing my mindset of “my one vote won’t matter” to it “takes a village to make a change.”
My ballot will be finished and mailed off by Friday. I will not give it time to collect dust. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to all of your volunteers who take the time to write letters to those of us in other countries like myself. Thank you for reminding us that our votes still matter and count. I never knew before that this organization existed, but I am certainly glad it does!!
Our group of “Letter Writers for Democracy” at my church last weekend. We wrote over 3,000 letters for Vote Forward.
My first thought when I saw this post was “no shit.” Do some women actually think they have to vote how their husbands do? (And don’t even get me started on churches. Pastors should not be telling their flocks how to vote. And if they do, they should get their nonprofit tax-exempt status revoked.)
My second thought was “how sad.” So many women are stuck in power-imbalanced marriages and feel they can’t get out.
I’ve been married 31 years and my husband (thankfully) never even entertained the idea of voting for Trump, but we’ve had plenty of other fights. Two things he’s never done is physically threaten me (even though he’s much bigger and stronger than me) or try to control what I do (even though he earned much more money than I did when we were both working).
If you’re being controlled by your husband or boyfriend—either physically or mentally—you should be making your escape plan. I firmly believe that.
And did you see that interview that Kamala did with Fox News? Infuriating! Fuck Bret Baier. Fuck him right in the ass.
I love the ubiquitous clip of Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph saying “sweater weather.” It’s dumb, but it makes me laugh every time. I think it’s because Amy Poehler is using an authentic Boston accent. She grew up two towns over from where I did.
It is, in fact, “sweater weather” in Massachusetts. And I’m very pleased to report that I wore a sweater out to lunch yesterday and did not regret it. Maybe my hot flashes are finally subsiding.
I am continuing to write letters and postcards to help get out the vote in swing states, but that will be ending soon. My extreme anger at the Trump movement has risen to the surface again. I’m really fucking pissed at everyone who voted for him in 2016 and/or 2020, including members of my own family (not my husband or my kids). And I truly HATE all of Trump’s Republican enablers in the GOP. My hatred extends to all the Republicans who don’t support him, but have strategically kept their mouths shut during this campaign. For example, my college classmate Jane Swift (former Governor of Massachusetts) has not said one thing in support of Harris. Fuck you Jane. Nobody cares about your daughter’s engagement ring. Post about something that actually matters. Be BRAVE, like Liz Cheney. Speaking of former Massachusetts Governors, where the fuck is Mitt Romney??!? He should be out campaigning for Harris. Bill Weld has been public about supporting Harris, but unfortunately nobody gives a shit about Bill Weld anymore.
19 more days.
I think I should stop watching the news and just watch videos of cats in sweaters for the next three weeks.
I think a lot of people in the Northeast (including me!) checked off “See the Northern Lights” from their buckets lists last night. This was especially rewarding for those of us who missed seeing them in May. Who knew our once-in-a-lifetime chance would come twice in one year?
The Northern Lights from my very own neighborhood last night around 7:15pm. I was on my way to choir practice and happened to look up.
This feels like a lot of things.
Remembrance
The lights and colors in the sky last night reminded me of my close friend from college, Carla, who died in 2022. She had brain cancer. She really wanted to see the Northern Lights before she died, but was too sick to travel, so her friends and family found a way to project them onto the ceiling in her bedroom in Santa Fe. It was beautiful.
A Sign
I know I’m not alone in feeling a lot of anxiety about the state of the country and the way it feels like we’re never going to go back to “normal” — no matter who wins the election. I’ve never in my life been afraid of a US election, but I’m afraid of this one.
Similarly, I never once saw the Northern Lights as a kid growing up in Massachusetts, but this year, many New Englanders saw them twice! A little girl standing near me last night said, “this is God.” Maybe so. Or maybe it’s a sign of transition to a new era—an era where completely new things happen.
Unknown new things are scary and I have a strong urge to “circle the wagons” and try to protect the ones I love. (I think to myself, “please stay in Massachusetts where you’ll maybe be a bit safer from gun violence, flooding, dangerous reproductive care, crappy public schools, etc.)
But I know that’s not really possible.
My new granddaughter will hopefully live into the next century. She will live out most of her life in this new era, whatever it may be. I want her to feel free, adventurous, and safe to explore the world beyond her home state.
Living in the transitional time
An activist friend of mine left for New Zealand yesterday. She’s staying until the end of the month. She said she just needed to get out of the country for these last few weeks before the election. I can relate. In some ways, it’s all just too much.
Maybe seeing the aurora borealis is the reminder some of us needed to center ourselves and live in the moment. Humans have been around a long time and have accomplished many great things and many terrible things. Even though it sometimes feels like end times are upon us, there’s a decent chance that something great is just around the corner too.
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