This is not the America anyone dreamed.
It has been a heavy week, weighted down with the revelation of just how much my country hates women. It was bad enough that America elected Donald the first time around, even after we knew he was a misogynistic predator and a swindler who doesn’t pay his taxes or his debts. Even after he was charged with raping a 13-year-old. Then we had four years of the worst governance we’ve ever had, in which people lost their lives because of how badly he mishandled the pandemic. We know he’s a liar, we know he’s a serial rapist, we know he can barely string two words together and that when he does they’re never the truth. But America is so afraid of having a woman as a leader that they chose a convicted felon over a qualified female candidate. It immediately feels less safe to be a woman in this country than it did a week ago. He has chased the decency out of our culture. People are calling ICE on their neighbors. Boys are taunting little girls in schools with, “Your body, my choice.” Anonymous texts are flooding historically Black college campuses, ordering the students to report to slave-handlers for plantation duty. It’s monstrous. This is unraveling any progress we’ve made as a nation over the past two hundred years. This isn’t America the brave, this is America the white supremacist who cannot bear to see women or people of color as full human beings. It is utterly bleak. I’ve never been so ashamed to be American.