Four Years Is a Long Time
Four years ago, I voted in my first Presidential election via absentee ballot. I was a college sophomore living with two friends and an indescribably weird roommate who hated our guts. I suddenly needed to know what a notary was, and where to find one. I was desperately hopeful about a great many things. Since I had become politically conscious, I had only experienced the absurdity that was the George W. Bush Presidency. I was ready for a change, and I was excited to vote. I still have a copy of the Daily Oklahoman with the triumphant headline: "Yes, he did!"My only disappointment was that I would be spending most of Obama's first year in office abroad. I was, in retrospect, relieved -- a Democratic President-elect made the beginning of my year in Europe a lot less embarrassing than it would have been in the Bush era, or even in a McCain one. I watched in real time as America's reputation abroad changed, and I was proud.
Well, here we are on election day. Some things have changed, and some have not. I'm a graduate student now, and a biologist, and (still) a woman. I'm still voting in the interests of education, science funding, gender equality, and women's health -- and I hope I would be, even if I didn't belong to all of these groups. The widespread selfishness I've seen expressed with regard to both social and economic issues in this election cycle has astounded and disheartened me. I can't deny that I've been disappointed some in the last few years. 19-year-old me didn't realize that I wasn't voting for a dictator. I didn't realize how difficult it is to get Congress to agree with itself. I didn't realize how impossible it would be for Republicans to set aside their paranoia about Socialism -- or their intense self-interest, or their militant enforcement of their religious beliefs -- in the fight for education and health care. The last four years have revealed a side of America I didn't want to believe in -- a science-illiterate electorate determined to ignore climate change; a less-than-subtle air of racism surrounding the President and immigrants of all kinds, but especially those of Muslim faith; the insistence that distinctly un-Christlike "Christian values" should define not only morality but legality. It frightens me to imagine the kind of ideal world espoused by the Republican platform.
We can't afford to go back, only forward.
In moving to Minnesota, that's what I thought I was doing. I have been pleased, so far, to live in the liberal-friendly Twin Cities and to be surrounded by ecologists and evolutionary biologists. It is, evidently, a false sense of security. This is the state that elected Michele Bachmann, after all. On arrival, I was greeted by a proposed Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Today, I voted no on that amendment, emphatically -- for all that my bubbled-in choice can reflect the degree to which I care. I do not wish to live in a place that codifies such bigotry, and I'm worried about the outcome.
Regardless of all of my fear and dismay, things are changing. It's getting better. Slowly. Today, I voted. I hope you did, too. Tonight, I'll watch the election results with my graduate cohort and think about what a long time four years is. What am I going to do to help move us forward between now and the 2016 election?
Great entry. I was thinking back over the past 4 years earlier this afternoon. As you should imagine, I also became politically aware during the Bush era, and I remember watching with disbelief as Obama won the election 4 years ago. I went home to Dallas to vote for him, thinking the whole time that a nation as ignorant and racist as America was still years and years away from electing a non-white president. I was pleasantly and starkly mistaken.
ReplyDeleteThis election I went in relatively confident that the country wouldn't elect someone as out of touch as Romney.
As you mentioned, much of the political activities from the past 4 years have been frustrating, flabbergasting, enraging, and even chilling at times--but to be honest, I think I expected a lot of it. Perhaps the thing that disturbed me the most has been the inability to agree even on basic factual information. There has been a lot of irrational demonization and self-congratulations. I suspect that they will continue.
But all we can do is keep moving forward. The next 4 years will be another 4 years to read more and write more, see more and hear more. If we're strong then it will be another 4 years to grow up, and not to cower down.