This IS Who We Are

The Death of The American Fantasy

I get annoyed when leaders or people say: “This is not who we are!” I know they mean well. And maybe what they mean to say is that this is not who we should be. We have been fed an American fantasy, created by advertising, entertainment, and propaganda, that we are the best in the world and everything is “awesome.” But clearly, it IS who we are. While I am tempted to believe that there was some voodoo happening at the polls — some sort of cheating — that’s not my problem to solve. And the truth is I became a poll worker to watch and see how it goes so I could have faith in the results. By the end of the loooooooonnnnngggg day on Tuesday, I knew that the Democrats were going to lose. Sure, I didn’t want to believe it and held out some hope. But I do like facts. The telling moment for me was at the end of the night when I was able to accidentally view the ballot of a young woman of color, wearing a nurse outfit, cast her vote for Trump. This is exactly the type of woman my fellow Democrats and I thought we were trying to help by voting for Harris. Turns out she didn’t want our help.

All day, I watched steely-eyed men — both extremely old and very young march in to cast their votes. A few of them demanded to know if their vote would really be counted and how they could tell. I reassured them the system was safe and their vote would be counted. And it was. It was. But it wasn’t just the men. It was women, too — yes, some with their bearded husbands glaring over their shoulders as they cast their vote. Clearly, this is who we are.

In the chaos of election day (we had the highest turnout I had ever seen) I pondered about how we are all living in different bubbles, getting completely different messages. In retrospect, there are many things I wish would have been different about the Harris campaign. I wish she would have spoken out more strongly against the destruction of Gaza and its people. I wish she would have discussed Regenerative Organic Agriculture's importance (instead of ceding that to RFKJR). I wish she would have addressed climate change more clearly and consistently. I wish she wouldn’t have sent me so many texts begging for money, even after I gave and gave. Speaking of money, I suspect that many people voted for Trump because they believe he will lower the prices of food and gas and increase their pay. And I am curious to see how that will play out for them. If it doesn’t work, I am pretty sure they will still find a way to blame the Democrats.

The day after the election was busier than I would have liked. There was little time to feel my feelings. But that night, I felt compelled to watch the movie Origin, a docudrama based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste, which I read almost exactly four years ago during the last election. She makes the case that the discrimination we see around us is not based on racism but based on caste. She shows how the Nazi genocide of the Jews was based on the Jim Crow laws of the American South. But even thousands of years earlier and to this day, caste in India is still extremely prevalent, with the Dalit, or untouchables, being treated as sub-human. Lesser than. Lower than low. The Zionists in Israel have demonized the Palestinians for being sub-human, even as they still remember being demonized for being a sub-human race themselves. Race, religion, and even gender are just tools all humans use to create a hierarchy where we are better than others, and others can’t be better than us. The most chilling part of the movie Origin for me personally was a re-enactment of the Nazi burning of books with them screaming about ending “Jewish Intellectualism.” That struck my heart — both as a book lover and a one-quarter Jew whose grandfather was the intellectual who founded the modern organic movement in America (his parents escaped Poland before the Nazis in an earlier effort to exterminate Jews in the late 1800s). My intellect is my joy and comfort. It helps me to understand the world and make sense of things, even when I don’t want to believe it.

But it was also clear at the polls Tuesday that my love of knowledge is not shared by many people. I saw people struggle to read. Struggle to follow directions. Struggle to move their bodies. Struggle to understand how to vote and understand the system. I don’t blame them! I, too, struggled to understand for many years. I’ve often been afraid of not knowing how to do something or trying something new.

But now I am a different sort of scared. I am scared to speak out in case I get targeted by some sort of hater. But I am even more scared for friends and family who are people of color, transgender, gay, or FEMALE. Yes, I am female. But I am old. And I have a track record of being kind and nice even to people I don’t agree with. I also, thanks to my intellectual curiosity, have seen behind the curtain of the Great American Fantasy. Presidents of both parties have often been philandering sexual predators. Our military has often “taken out” democratically elected leaders of other countries because they interfere with our capitalist business interests (to keep the price of food and gas down because that still is the number one thing people give a shit about). Politicians of all parties have been bought by lobbying groups. Women have always sold each other out for political, sexual, or financial favors. Politicians, entertainers, community, and religious leaders have always been sexual abusers and traffickers. Colonizers have always stolen Indigenous children and tried to kill them and destroy their culture. And billionaires of both parties have bought politicians to further their personal agendas.

This. Is. Who. We. Are.

I’m sorry if it makes you feel uncomfortable. But it’s a fact. As is the fact that most people won’t even bother to read this.

All we can do now is learn, evolve, be kind to each other, and get involved in our local communities so we learn from each other. One Facebook friend wrote today that we don’t have to be big heroes, but we can be tiny heroes, helping wherever we can in even the smallest ways. That is what will get us through any darkness that lies ahead. That, and planting a garden.

And that, my friends, is who I AM.

I’m not going to give anyone false hope. I don’t know if we will be ok. All I know is that right now, we are here. I am here. You are here. The sun rises and sets. The moon goes through its 28-day cycle. Now, we must begin the process of dreaming, creating, and planning who we WANT to be in the future (if we live to see it).