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half of us care about people and the other half are racist, sexist assholes

“Well, what you call ‘polarized’ I call simply just being stupid, hateful, and awful … This is not an attack on you or what you said at all but that’s why I avoid accepting the polarization argument. I don’t like to be positioned against a racist as polarity”
—from a note to a friend

“‘There’s nothing Harris could have done because voters primarily care about their personal finances at the same time as being economically illiterate’ is kind of an unsatisfying conclusion but here we are”
—Computer Cowboy

Your average American does not have the knowledge or intellectual acumen to form a legitimate opinion on foreign policy, the economy, immigration, any of those intrinsically complex topics that require a lot more than the “quality” of education provided by the American public school system.

This is by design, it’s not a bug.

Keep the populace dumb, angry, and give them a scapegoat (immigrants, feminists, POC, transgender people) and it’s easy to convince them that the prices of gas and eggs will come down somehow if you elect the man who has no idea how tariffs work and will deport all the dirty people you hate who work at the egg farms.

We can also lay the blame at the feet of evangelical Christians, who, at best, are painfully ignorant to the most extreme application of the dictionary definition, or, at worst, are either completely batshit insane or inherently evil.

Sadly the toxic masculinity movement, fueled by self proclaimed alpha types like Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and Andrew Tate, has mass appeal not only among white gen‑x men but noticeably young Latino and black men, which is both infuriating and a total fucking tragedy.

Sexism and misogyny is institutional and they run deep, the same as racism, and neither can simply be reduced to “men hate women” any more than racism can be reduced to worn out stereotypes of black people.

When you combine all of it with gross ignorance, this is what you get.

Four years ago

I was celebrating the pathetic victory that was a Biden win. We’d fallen pretty far by that point but holy shit we’ve gone subterranean now.

One thing that really disappoints me is seeing all the people who are still willing to give even an inch to their friends and family members who support this guy and helped elect him.

America is full of a bunch of people who can’t get out of abusive relationships, and not all of them are marriages.

I know it’s not a choice I can make for people, and believe me, I absolutely know from personal experience just how hard it is to cut someone out. How much it hurts.

What’s left to navigate after the choice is made.
The sense of loss.
The questioning.
Did I do the right thing?

The fear of regret and the temptation to go back.
The guilt.

But honestly … in the end it really is worth it.

There are no words in my lexicon to accurately describe how freeing it is once you finally cut someone toxic out of your life. It does not make you a bad person, a selfish person, any of that. It makes you a survivor and sets you free.

I’m not even really that much of an at risk demographic other than being a woman who is secretly a little queer (lmfao guess it’s not a secret anymore 🤣) but is very happily married to a man who I love dearly and I’m more than fine with that.

But my own mother voted for Trump in 2016.

My mother, who once had an abortion.
My mother, who has a daughter, me.
My mother, whose father – my grandfather – retired as a full bird colonel and stood on the deck of the Mighty Mo when MacArthur signed the document with Japan for them to surrender.

My grandfather is one of the losers Trump disrespects.
My mother, who was married to a Vietnam vet who suffered his whole life from what he endured there.
Another one of Trump’s losers.

I’m not even trans or gay or a person of color.
I’m just a white woman who is pretty weird and is capable of getting pregnant (unfortunately).

When people vote for a candidate who will hurt you, those people are voting to hurt you.

It does not matter if their purported reason for voting for him wasn’t about him wanting to hurt you. They still chose someone who made it very clear that they are going to hurt you. You, the person your friend or family member supposedly loves and cares about. And you may say to yourself, “But they didn’t want to hurt me.” They still did. “They didn’t know.” Probably not true but even then, that doesn’t make it better.

They will not save you when the chips are down.

They will choose themselves over you.
They have already done that.
And I know that hurts and it’s painful and you wish it weren’t so.

But it’s the truth.

—emily duchaine

Flommist Emily Duchaine lives in the Pacific Northwest. She likes to drink mead, learn about sharks, and listen to the Talking Heads. She pretends to be a professional businesswoman most days. Copyright © 2024 Emily Duchaine.