Today is a significant day. It's election day, November 5, 2024, and it's the anniversary of the "Flood of '85," a major event for my community wherein a large portion of many small towns were wiped out by a natural disaster of magnificent proportions on that long-ago election day.
Today is also the day I let it all go, I hope. I hope I write this out here and never think of it again. I hope I am wrong about so many things.
My mother never voted. She's been dead for 24 years, and of all the things I know about her, this one bothers me the most. It bothered me the day she told me she had never voted - and in thinking back, I realized I'd never once gone with her to the polls or seen her show much interest in politics - and it bothers me still, on this day when I have voted to save the life of my nieces (one by marriage), my great niece, and young women unknown to me, should any of them find themselves in need of gynecological care that some states are denying women. I voted to ensure that young women I love do not have fewer rights than I did at their age. I voted to ensure that they could get or keep credit cards, purchase and own property, and not become property.
I have always voted. I have never missed an election, except the one in 1985 when everything flooded, and I couldn't get to the polls. Fortunately, that wasn't a big election year. I know for some folks who suffered from flooding earlier in October, voting might be difficult today. I hope that those people are doing better and that those who want to vote have been able to do that. I hope they get to do the one thing that every citizen of this nation should do.
My mother never voted because she didn't want to serve on a jury, she said. At one time, the jury pools were pulled from the voter rolls, although they've long stopped doing this. But that was her reason. She didn't do her civic duty because she didn't want to do her other civic duty as a citizen of this nation.
I consider serving on a jury to be an honor, and an obligation as part of my role of living in the United States. I've been called a few times but always sent home - journalists aren't people lawyers want on juries. They generally look for people who don't know how to think. I know this because I worked for lawyers once upon a time, too.
My love of country and desire to pay it forward comes from . . . I'm not sure where. Books, maybe? My teachers? My education? It surely did not come from my mother, who never voted.
The other day, someone made fun of me because I am afraid. Because as a woman, I have always been afraid, and I have often been mocked for that by men who do not understand what it is to be a woman in a nation that makes women second class citizens even now, even when we still have some rights but do not have them in the U.S. Constitution. There is no equality for women written into the laws of this land. There are band-aids and coverlets, but there is no law that says men and women are equal in the eyes of the law.
I have been abused by men. Before I met my husband, I was abused by many men. I won't go into the details of that, but suffice it to say, I have no reason to trust anyone who is male, except for my husband, who has proven to me time and again that he is trustworthy. But even he has that male privilege thing going on.
Even he doesn't really understand my fears.
My recent fears have been because I have been personally threatened by people in my community. As a news writer for 40 years, I am fairly well known here, though hopefully not so much now since I'm not writing for newspapers anymore. For 35 years I wrote without fear of repercussions because I believed strongly in the law and in the power of the Fourth Estate. I believed in revealing truth to power, that democracy dies in darkness, that shedding the light on what government officials were doing was the right and honorable thing to do.
And then 2016 came and it all went to hell. Suddenly the media was the "the enemy of the people." Two years ago, I made my first call to the local sheriff's office to report a threat to my life. I've made several calls to the local sheriff's office since.
Some people may laugh about this. Who is going to hurt me, the person making fun of me said. Give me names. I gave no names because I could hear the ridicule in his voice. I ended the conversation.
But we have a candidate running for the presidency, the most honorable office of this land, who just days ago said this:
He doesn't mind if the "fake news" media are shot. He basically invited someone to go out and do that. He is a former president, after all. People follow his directions. They fight like hell for him.
While I know there are some who say, "Oh, they're talking about the mainstream media as 'the enemy of the people,' not people like you who write for little publications," not everybody thinks that way.
There are people who think any media is now "the enemy of the people."
And that's why I have had death threats. And why other media people I know have had death threats. They've escalated mightily since 2016.
A hate group on social media found out I was concerned about threats to the local supervisors back in the summer. For that, I got put on a "list" to be given to God knows who. And then there's just the fact that I've been writing about the local government for years, though I think this blog has put me more in harm's way than news writing ever did. On this blog, I think people can see more of who I really am. And they see that I am a strong woman - I've had to be, to survive - and nobody likes a strong woman.
A few years ago, some men went before the local government and asked the county leaders to recognize their "militia." This was a loosely organized group of people who wanted to be soldiers without being in the military, I guess. The leaders here said no, we don't need that, we have a sheriff's office and the state police. However, leaders in an adjoining county said, "yes."
I am 99% certain we have people here locally in a militia; I think it has since combined with the adjoining county but I'm not 100% sure of that. I haven't looked into it because I don't want to be associated with any such thing.
I have watched as a certain candidate recently used the colors of black and gold at one of his revivalist rallies in Michigan. Do you know who else uses black and gold? The Proud Boys. You know who they are? They're a white supremacist hate group. They led the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
If a certain candidate wins or loses, I have no doubt that he will call upon his "militias" to do damage. Either they will go after state government officials, or they will go after federal ones, but I am expecting these people to be ordered to do damage, one way or the other, by taking down the "swamp" or by taking out the "others."
It seems likely they will also go after people on "lists" created by hate groups on social media.
Maybe they will go after bloggers who have not been happy with the former guy. Maybe they will go after anyone who has ever said anything disloyal to the former guy.
Maybe it's all in my imagination, and nothing at all will happen.
Thirty-nine years ago, I did not vote because of a flood. My mother never voted. I think young woman stand to lose their rights if a certain candidate wins this election. I think I stand a chance to sustain grave injury, if not to my physical person, then to my psyche.
I'm not sure how this all ties in together, to be honest. But here it is. I wanted to lay it all out there before this day is done.
My mother never voted. I missed one vote because of a flood. My life has been threatened. I voted to save the lives of young women.
Does any of that matter? Should it?
What is one life, anyway? What are a few lives?
There are billions of people, after all. Everyone is expendable (see Covid response).
I voted like my life depends on it.
Because I think it does.
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