Analogous

The voter suppression that is taking place right now is really getting me down. It’s one thing for one raging imbecile (who happens to be our president) to say and do horrible, unforgivable things, but it’s another for a political party to systematically chip away at the voting rights of this country’s citizens so they can remain in power even though the majority of the population does not believe in their causes or policies.

I will be quite honest here, and it’s embarrassing for me to say, but I did not pay much attention to politics before the 2016 election. I read some articles here and there during Obama’s two terms, especially when the Affordable Care Act was being passed, but before that I really did not know what the what was going on in Washington DC. I didn’t realize that the Republican Party had been passing laws to restrict voting rights for decades, or that the talking points they use now to explain away their president’s racist, misogynist behavior and comments, have been in their employ for just as long.

{And yes, I realize that in my ignorance, I was absolutely part of the problem. My only saving grace is that I have ALWAYS voted.}

On the way to Legoland, my husband and I listened to the first season of the podcast Slow Burn, an eight-part mini-series about Watergate. It was so well made, and there was so much about the whole ordeal that I didn’t know, which made it even more interesting.

There were two things that struck me about the whole scandal. The first was how familiar the news coverage felt, at times it was almost like deja vu, especially it commented on the tactics Nixon used to thwart the Justice Department’s investigation. The second was how far the majority of the Republican Party went to defend Nixon, even as it became increasingly apparent he was not only lying, but blatantly obstructing justice.

In the end, it was heartening to hear that so many Republicans on the special committee ultimately voted to impeach Nixon, many of them stating that if they failed to do so, they would be destroying the constitution as we know it. Still, that was the part that felt least familiar, and I realized that I have almost no faith that Republicans (or enough Republicans) in the House or Senate would go against their party to protect the constitution, or the office of the President, from the man currently occupying it.

Every day I read another horrifying article about states that are passing laws that so brazenly diminish the voting rights of minorities. It’s really hard for me to understand how anyone can call themselves a Republican with a clear conscious right now. I am really struggling to feel empathy, or be understanding. It will be hard to visit my relatives next year, knowing that they still identify with a party that has such a long history of stripping others of their most basic, and essential rights. It’s one thing to argue about taxes or debate about immigration policy, its quite another to approve, even passively, of citizens being systematically silenced in a country they are proud to call a democracy.

I don’t know. I’m embarrassed to only be learning of the true extent of this now, I mean in a real, substantive way. I know I need to do more than just write postcards to voters, but it’s hard to feel like my efforts will make a difference when one party has spent decades ensuring that it won’t.

So I guess that is my attempt at a political post. I don’t frequently broach these topics as I am not well versed in politics and recognize I have nothing of consequence to say. But today I felt like I had to say this.

Analogous