I am sick and hurt, and even physically ill over this election cycle. I keep thinking I need to write about what’s going on in this country and all I feel is fury.
Just this morning, I was complaining about the Republican Party in what I thought was a safe, though public, environment.
“I’m a Republican,” said the woman behind me. “I’m a Trumper. I’m a business woman and I want him to run the country like it should be.”
And I almost told her that if she was a business woman and found Trump a good model, then I absolutely did not want to do business with her. I almost called her an idiot, too. Actually, I did later, behind her back.
The trouble is, that’s not me. I do not aspire to that kind of meanness. My values are firmly entrenched in live and let live. In respecting perspectives, values and ideas different from my own. I believe in being kind and understanding. I try to choose love over anger and fear.
And yet, right now, I am so angry and hurt and frustrated. I’m sure there are folks out there who cannot fathom how anyone could vote for Hillary Clinton and feel at least as frustrated as I do. But I cannot understand it for the life of me. I’m trying, folks, but I just can’t.
Maybe it’s because I know what it feels like to have people constantly assuming the worst of you. I’ve been hurt by that kind of thinking more times than I care to count and have only recently found some safer people to hang with. So when I see Mrs. Clinton being routinely vilified on no evidence, called evil even by people who are supposed to be on her side, yeah, that hurts. It hurts badly.
Maybe it’s because I’ve seen Mr. Trump in person, at at least two different press conference, back when I was a TV critic. I found the man’s values so skewed, I felt like I needed to take a shower after each conference. His greed, arrogance, and contempt for anyone who does not think like him, those are the kinds of values writers assign to villains. They are traits that are universally labelled bad or even evil. And yet, there are people who find that kind of evil a better alternative to Mrs. Clinton, who is no saint but still works for things like childcare and justice and other things that most people find admirable.
This boggles my mind. Worse yet (and this is why I was cursing the Republican Party when I met Trumper lady, not Mr. Trump) certain Republicans are already saying that if Mrs. Clinton wins the election, they will not work with her. Oh, that was bad enough when President Obama was elected. But even worse, these Republicans are going to keep investigating her and attacking her on all fronts. Never mind that in 30 years, they have failed to find anything on her. Like it would kill them to work with her? What is wrong with people who have to stay so stuck on their own rightness that all they can do is find fault and attack others when maybe compromising would be for the greater good?
I know that love is the answer, and I feel like I’m failing badly, which also hurts. I want to be compassionate, to assuage the fears of people on the Right. But they are simply not listening. They refuse, and that hurts, too. I am willing to listen. I am willing to consider that maybe I’m not right, that I don’t necessarily have the one best answer. But you can’t work with people who only see one perspective and that is their own. You just can’t, and I don’t know what to do about that. Except pray.