I haven’t written about the election yet, or my reaction, but it’s still weighing heavy on me. Some basic facts that affect how I feel. (My readers back from MDD Days know this about me, but I’ll refresh..)
I was a victim of father/daughter incest…
I was a stranger rape victim when I was 17
I helped to raise my daughter’s best friend, who is a woman of color
My middle daughter is a lesbian, and engaged to marry her fiancee in 2018.
While I have some republican tendencies, I’ve always tried to vote for the best person for the job. This year, there wasn’t necessarily a better person that I could cast my vote for, but obviously, there was someone I had to vote AGAINST.
Donald Trump said some alarming things about being attracted to his own daughter.
Donald Trump said that people in power can get away with sexual abuse.
Mike Pence tried to ARREST gays attempting to get marriage licenses.
Donald Trump said terrible things about minorities, including Hispanics and African Americans.
I made the assumption that anyone who loved me and my children would NOT vote for someone who enables sexual abuse, endangers my daughter’s civil rights, and is an all around HORRIBLE person.
Okay, I was wrong. But “it’s politics” they say. I shouldn’t judge people on their politics. I was very very sad to find my mother voted for the Trump/Pence ticket, but I know that though she loves my daughter, she feels deeply that marriage is for one man and one woman. I understand that is how she was raised, and while it disappoints me, I can live with that.
Here’s the thing. After Trump won, all of my daughters posted on Facebook that they were not interested in remaining friends with those who had voted for that man. It was a knee jerk reaction, held by many. I soothed their fears, held their hands, cried with them, and we carried on.
About a week after the election, my little sister sent me an instant message note stating that my ENTIRE family had voted for Trump and the family felt that MY DAUGHTERS owed THEM an apology for stating they were upset with Trump voters.
Oh My.....
I stayed up all night thinking about it. Then I sent a group message to my entire family reminding them of the facts listed about. And how betrayed I felt that anyone who knew what I had gone through with my sexual abuse, and who knew that Sabrina was gay and wanted to get married would vote for that man. I stated that NONE of us knew they had voted that way, and in order to get my girls to apologize, I would first have to give them the disheartening news that MY ENTIRE FAMILY voted DIRECTLY against Sabrina and Dani keeping their civil rights, and PUT A MAN in power that would only further sexual abuse against women.
I asked, that before I had to do that, if any of them would just admit that our fears were real, and that acting out in anger was a phase of grief. I could ask my girls to try and understand their vote, if they could try and understand why we were so upset about it. Politics IS a tricky thing, and if they had weighed and measured the pain he could cause, against their reasons for voting for him, we would try to understand. (True of all of my readers too....if you don’t have someone like me in your background, and had real reasons you voted for him, I wouldn’t love you any less.) But I’m guessing you would never expect ME TO APOLOGIZE for striking out in fear and grief in my reaction.
NOT A SINGLE ONE of my siblings nor my mother moved an inch. I got responses like:
Trump is right....our culture was here first!
We love Brina…but it’s all about “love the sinner…HATE the sin.”
Most abuse victims ask for it.
He’s going to save me some money on my health care.
I want all the Muslims and Mexicans gone. Every ONE!
Every time we give someone food stamps or welfare, it just enables them to be lazy.
So....that is where I stand at the moment. I haven’t picked up the phone and called any member of my family since the election, nor have they called me.
I have NOT told my children who they voted for, or their true feelings on any of it.
I have and WILL NOT encourage them to apologize for their anger at Trump voters.
Our family Christmas will be in Wisconsin on January 7. I assume that NO politics will be mentioned, and no wounds will be healed. I will be polite, but distant. It’s so hard to know that when they look at me and my family they think that I ‘deserved’ what I got, that Brina ‘chooses’ to be gay and shouldn’t have the right to marry, and though I raised Dani, she is a lesser person than us, and shouldn’t enjoy the same freedoms.
I’m so darn sad. They don’t see how I can feel personally betrayed. I don’t see how they CAN’T see it. So Darn Sad.
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