Seven

(If you don’t want to read about what happened a week ago, I don’t blame you. Just skip this one.)

For the past eight years, I believed that Donald Trump was a threat to our democracy.

I don't anymore.

Here's my hot take: When it comes to the results of the recent election, I don't blame the Trump voters. I don't blame the third-party voters, or the people who screamed about flawed candidates on both sides, or even those who didn't vote at all.

I blame the Founding Fathers.

In 2016, I was outraged that we would have to live with a terrifying facist-racist-sexual-assaulting-wanna-be-dictator for a president when, by the raw numbers, he wasn’t even who we elected. But now, in 2024, (when we can add convicted felon to that list) he won. He won the popular vote.

And my brain broke. The whole world looks different. The still, small voice that has been whispering since I was a kid is finally loud enough for me to hear it.

I'm finished, at last, with the cognitive dissonance it has taken to believe–or to accept that anyone believes–that the founding fathers of this country invented some unique ideal of freedom while sitting inside buildings erected through the labor of enslaved people and on land that was stolen from Native tribes. I can no longer hold in my head the idea that America strives for equality when Black people, women, and so many other groups had to fight for something as obvious as a chance to vote.

The "right to vote" didn’t create equality for anyone, of course. Instead, it simply required the powers-that-be to change strategies in order to maintain their sacred inequality. Hence: hyper-capitalism, fearmongering, tokenism, lies, dog-whistling, scapegoating, imperialism, violent mob-mindsets, victim-blaming, and gaslighting. These are true American values.

Donald Trump won because he’s what America wanted. He’s what America has always wanted.

My still, small voices is screaming at me: Donald Trump has been our destiny since 1776.

My next hot take: if America is going to continue to reject freedom, equality, and justice–all the reasons I was raised to love it–well, then I can reject America.

I can’t stop thinking that we need more than a different president.

We need a whole new country.

You see? I snapped.

I don't even know what this means completely, but I know I needed to say it (now, while I still have the constitutional right to do so) because I can’t do what I did in 2016: I can’t work to restore a country I want to reject. But, I can’t do nothing, either. So…now what?

I guess I'm searching for different kinds of leaders. The ones who are done praying that we'll one day elect a woman for president. The ones who are finished believing we can vote our way to equality. The ones who will see–around all the false promises of checks and balances, and peaceful transfers of power, and flimsy, patriotic ideals–that the one constant of this country is that it has always, always, always–always–been hurting people.

I’m looking for leaders who value solid and practical human rights over abstract-noun ideals.

I need to find people who are able to recognize their own power, even inside of systems that try to render them powerless. Who can find power simply because they are human. Who are ready to teach me how to find and use my own power, and how to bring out the power in other silent, powerless voices.

I want the leaders who will see more than the coming destruction of this moment. The ones who will see a potential future rising for the wreckage that Trump has promised. Who will be ready for the rebuilding if the resisting continues to fail.

I'm looking for the leaders who, like me, realize that giving up on America does not mean giving up on humanity. On hope.

So...yeah…if you know where they are, please point me the right way.

RECOMMENDATIONS

On the theme of this letter, I recommend consuming stories of people finding and hoarding power where most of us wouldn’t have thought to look (and then using it for good, of course.) Like…

-These podcast episodes about the life of Jane Addams

OR

-This documentary (for adults) about The Children’s March in Birmingham

OR

This book (for kids) also about The Children’s March in Birmingham

OR

This memoir by Malala Yousafzai

WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR

Well, this whole letter has pretty much been about what I’m looking for, but also, send me more recommendations of stories about people who find power and use creativity to work around oppressive systems.