November 21, 2024

Like millions of Americans, the re-election of Donald Trump came as a complete shock to me. I was comfortable in my echo chamber where Taylor Swift endorsements, White Dudes for Harris Zooms, and the Democratic Party’s massive war chest and obviously brilliant ground game had this thing sewn up. Vice President Harris was explaining how she was going to help Americans buy their first homes while Trump buffoonishly danced to “Ave Maria.” There was no way this convicted felon and adjudicated sex offender was going to get anywhere near the White House.

Boy, when you are wrong, you’re wrong.

The part of me that is a professional academic should have immediately gone into the post-game analysis. What macro-level trends were missed? What values were better communicated by one side and not the other? Instead, I just wanted to rage against the machine that allowed this calamity to happen. My emotions grabbed the wheel and I had nothing but vitriol for the fellow citizens of my nation. Wednesday morning, I sat in my bed and wrote one big “fuck you” to America.

It was ironic, because the work that I do with the Cure-PNW project is all designed to de-escalate political violence and here I was wondering out loud if I should buy a gun to protect my family (including a certain immigrant) from Matt Gaetz’s goon squads. Well, two and half weeks later, Gaetz is gone (for now), and we’re still here, moving forward in a nation where Trump won the popular vote. I de-escalated, but it took longer than it should have. My immediate reaction Election Night should have been, OK, now we have some real work to do, but instead what came out was my desire to just (metaphorically) blow up the whole idea of “America.”

When those swing states swung red, I thought about all the people, including friends, students, colleagues, and some family who will be greatly harmed if Trump follows through on his fascist plans. I thought of transgender friends who may lose access to health care. I thought of my DACA students facing very real plans of mass deportation. I thought of my daughter becoming a young woman in a nation that lifts up rapists and sexual abusers because they promise to lower the price of eggs. Andi wondered, as the results came in that night, if she should self-deport before Trump’s vigilantes started grabbing “illegals” off the street. (She’s not, but she was.) I thought about how this great nation may be unrecognizable in four years as the newly empowered bullies have a “permission structure” to attack the vulnerable.

My rage was for those who were hurting. In defense of them.

I want to use my straight white cis-male able-bodied privilege to both give voice to their fears and to stand as a barricade for what’s coming. But neither of those needs is achieved by attacking the people who voted for Trump. Much has been written about why people vote against their interests and much will be written about why average Americans, including a lot of women and Latinos, voted for the pro-billionaire Trump-Musk ticket. That’s academic. What’s not academic is how we heal this massive gash that divides us from each other.

The day after Election Day I posted a blog that was contrary to all the important work I do to heal that divide. As a human being (and a Pisces), I am prone to having emotions and I emoted a shit ton of anger that morning. Then I unplugged and started working on my mindfulness practice and found my way out. But that I posted that blog publicly meant that rage went out into the world. I wanted to give voice to all the anger that was out there, but the post-script about “give me some time to process this” was lost in the headline that probably sounded like, “Blazak wants women to rip Trump limb from limb.”

So, for the first time, I deleted a post. “America, I Quit” no longer exists. It was the product of my lizard brain and my need to lash out at this undeniable fascist and those who would enable him to harm to women, girls, queer folk, black, brown, and indigenous people, Muslims and other religious minorities, disabled people, and all the folks, including me, who do work for the federal government. But the tone of the blog post undermined the important work we do at Cure-PNW. It was more about burning bridges than building them. As I stated in the follow-up blog, I let hate win.

The truth is I have family members, dear friends, students, and (very likely) colleagues who voted for Trump and, while I think they made a disastrous choice on November 5th, I have great respect for all of them on so many levels. I hold them close and fight for their basic rights, as well.

I will continue to write about the fascist threat of Donald Trump and his weird circle of sycophants. I can’t not. I love this country and its people too much. But there is a way to do that that brings in his supporters instead of further alienating them, that doesn’t lean on violent language to make the point. As I have said in this blog, we’re all in this together. I have to offer grace to those that voted for him and to myself for having a very human reaction to this insane moment in human history. Onward.