I saw my niece recently. She’s eighteen, graduated from an arts high school, has a full-time job, and has moved into an apartment with her boyfriend and his friend. She also got two tattoos recently. A small one on her hand and a larger one on her arm. She asked me if I had heard about her getting tattoos, which I had from her father (my brother). I asked if I could see them. She showed me the small one, then shrugged off her jacket so she could display the other. It’s on her arm in a similar place to the one I have on my right arm. It was beautiful, and she told me she had to get it touched up because all the color hadn’t taken. I asked if she was going to get another one, and she said, “Oh, yes!” with eagerness. I laughed and said that you can’t stop with just one, and she nodded in agreement. Then, she said something about getting it because of me. I didn’t really register it, and we kept talking about tattoos as I walked her and her father to the door. She repeated that she had gotten her tattoos because she’s liked mine* ever since she was a small child. I was touched, but also concerned. It’s not a good reason to get a tattoo, but I can’t deny that it was flattering to hear.
She looked like me when she was a little girl. People used to think I was her mother, and my family would sometimes confuse her name with mine. We used to tell stories to each other for hours, with her being the Fairy Princess and me being the Fairy Queen. She wasn’t waiting around for her prince to come, however; in fact, many of our stories were about how she would save her prince from perils. I watched as she grew up to be a creative, artistic, sensitive, intelligent, thoughtful, striking young woman. She’s always been more feminine than I am. In fact, I remember when she was eleven, she wasn’t happy that her mom wouldn’t let her shave her legs until she was twelve. Boys like it when you shave your legs, she informed me gravely. When I told her that not all boys felt like that and that I didn’t shave my legs, she said with as much scorn as an eleven-year-old could muster, “You’re not married, so it doesn’t count.” It made me sad that she had gotten that message from society, but the only thing I could do was continue to model a different way of thinking in the best way I could.
I love my niece and two nephews equally, but I feel a deeper connection with my niece because she’s so much like me when I was her age–except better. I’ve jokingly called her Minna 2.0, but she’s not a mini-me. I have to keep that in mind. It’s hard because she has many of my traits, including the negative ones such as high anxiety. Every time I see her, I marvel at how amazing she is, and I’m proud to be her aunt. Back to the tattoo comment: I want her to be more than I ever was and to have a better life than I do. She’s on her way to doing just that, but I’m concerned about the results of this election and how they will affect her. Trump was in Minnesota today at a public rally. I didn’t hear about it until afterwards, otherwise, I might have went just to see it in person. However, I wouldn’t feel safe going a Trump rally as I’m most emphatically not in his target demo, unless you’re talking about the crosshairs of a target. Pence will be in Minnesota tomorrow, which I don’t think would be worth attending. At least with Trump, he’s the main attraction of a three-ring circus. Mike Pence is like the fifth ring of said circus.
Put aside the fact that there’s no reason for Trump to be in Minnesota. We’re not a swing state, no matter how much he tells himself we are. We’ve voted Democratic in the presidential election since Nixon. He didn’t even win the Republican primary, for fuck’s sake–Marco Rubio did. I mean, if it keeps him from stumping in an actual swing state, that’s a hit we’ll take, I guess, but how stupid is he?** I want to highlight something Trump said while he was here, however, because it was particularly heinous. We’ve had an influx of Somali refugees in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and the racial tensions are high. I was listening to This American Life about the tensions is St. Cloud. I know about them, but I didn’t know how bad they were. Locals talked about they’re being so many of ‘them’ on the basketball court and in the music classes. The St. Cloud people insist it’s not racial, but, of course, it is. The woman running for representative said to her audience, “Imagine your granddaughter tells you she’s in love. Now, imagine his name is Mohammed. Now, imagine they’re going to get married. Is it going to be a Muslim wedding? A Christian one? Now, genital mutilation is part of the Islamic culture. What will you do about that?” The person who saw it happen said the older people in the audience were worked up, saying, “What would I do about that?” I wanted to tell them, “Flip the script. Let’s say one of the Somali girls went home to her family and said, “I’m in love with an American named Jim Bob. In his religion, it’s tradition to ‘marry’ your daughter until she marries someone else. Also, to cut off the tip of the penis.” What would a Somali parent think of that?” I know it wouldn’t make a difference, but it’s so frustrating.
I tell this story as a backdrop to Trump coming to Minnesota and fomenting these racial tensions. This isn’t the first time he’s played to those particular fears. This time, however, he talked about how the Somalis are roaming around Minnesota, and how ‘we’ (Minnesotans) can’t do anything about it. “Everybody is talking about the disaster taking place in Minnesota….You don’t even have the right to talk about it.” Both of these statements by him are false, by the way. Everyone is not talking about it, and anyone can say whatever they want about it. In fact, the residents of St. Cloud successfully blocked a mosque from being built there, so there’s that. Trump said he would suspend the Syrian refuge program if he were president because he’s a fucking asshole. He also said, “If I don’t win Minnesota, I’m going to look real bad to those pundits I don’t respect very much.” How like Trump to care about how he’ll look to people he claims not to respect. Also, he’s not going to win Minnesota, and he already looks ‘real bad’. In addition, a few thousand people is not massive, local CBS. For fuck’s sake.
There’s a photo of someone at the rally wearing a shirt that said something like a rope, a tree, and a journalist. Some assembly may be required. I want to say that’s not Minnesota, but, sadly, it is. We have racial problems and plenty of hate, but this is not the majority of Minnesotans by far. Minneapolis mayor, Betsy Hodges posted a strong rebuke of Trump on her Facebook wall. In it, she takes him to task for trying to bring more fear and hatred to Minnesota, and how we welcome the diversity in our fair state.*** The whole thing is a thing of beauty, but my favorite part is:
4) You did get one thing right today, though. “Four years, you can forget it,” you said. Indeed. You can forget it.
That’s a very Minnesotan way of saying, “Fuck off, you piece of shit. Get the fuck out of my town.”
I’m not going to tell you how to vote. Oh, wait. Yes, I am.
OK. Real talk. If you live in a state that is solidly red or blue, then, yeah, go ahead and make that protest vote after you’re sure your state has gone one way or the other. I did that back in 1996 because I hate Bill Clinton, but I couldn’t bring myself to vote for…Dole? Was it Dole? Anyway, I waited until the returns came back and Clinton had Minnesota well in hand, and then I voted for Nader. Or wrote him in. I can’t remember which it was. I don’t live the two-party system, and I hate that you have to have millions if not billions of dollars in order to run for president. Honestly, I’d probably do the same except I want to vote for the first female presidential candidate of the United States. It is a historic moment, and I want to be a part of it.
If you’re in a state that is in contention, however, please, please, please vote for Clinton. If you care at all about your children’s future and/or your planet, you cannot, in good conscience, vote for Trump. He doesn’t believe in climate change. He’s going to try to deport 6 million immigrants on his first day in office. He wants to impose a tariff on imports from China, even though that’s where most of his factories are. He thinks women are objects to be had regardless of consent. He has no concept of global inter-connectivity, and he’s not much better on domestic issues. On a more personal level, he’s a narcissistic, violent, ignorant, soulless, petty, vindictive man who has no business being president.
Look. I understand being tired of politics as usual. Our government is broken, and it’s tempted to say, “Let’s clean house and start over.” The problem is if Trump is elected president, America as we know it is over. I’m not exaggerating. I’m not being hyperbolic. I’m just stating the truth. It’s hard to say exactly what would happen if Trump became president because there simply hasn’t been another candidate like him. And, no, Trump, that isn’t a compliment. There are protocols in politics that he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about, so what we know to be true about our government would cease to exist. Yes, I know that sounds great to some, but all the things you rely on will not work if he takes over.
The people who are talking about voting third party and starting a revolution if Trump is elected, quite simply, have the least to lose if Trump wins. I saw it with Nader back in 2000, and I’ll be damned if I have to go through that shit again. Revolutions are not romantic. They are not the easy way to clean shit up. Revolutions are brutal, dangerous, and many civilians lose their lives to the cause. Americans wouldn’t know a revolution if it bit them on the ass, and it’s infuriating to hear some people talk about it as if they’re in a production of Les Mis. I’m not one to say that online activism is worthless because I think there’s value in it. However, I would humbly suggest that we work to change the two-party system after we elect Clinton, not right now. It’s my one frustration with third-party candidates–they only come out every four years. Changing the infrastructure of our government is not going to happen over night or in one fell swoop. It takes time, commitment, frustration, sweat, and, yes, tears. I know it’s not as dazzling or impressive as a revolution, but it’s how real work gets done.
I’m not too proud to beg, folks. Or to pull at your heartstrings. Remember the niece I mentioned at the beginning of this post? When I look at her, I see the best of America, and I want the best for her. That means not handing tho reins of the control over to a megalomaniac who only cares about himself and not the country. That means voting for someone who will do more to ensure that a young woman of a diverse background can advance at a rate equal to her white male peers, which means Hillary Clinton. I want to be able to look my niece in the eyes and let her know that I voted for her future. I hope you can do the same to the young people in your life whom you love.
*I have four.
**Rhetorical question.
***Not always true, but we’re striving to make it so.