Soapbox

What if you held an election and nobody came?

Anyone who knows me knows that voting is basically my jam. Friends and family call me with questions like “Hey do I have to register here at school?” or “What if I want to change my party for this primary?” I want everyone to vote. Even the idiots who vote for things like Walls and ‘putting God back in our schools’.
So when I tell you that I was afraid to do my part running the primary this year, you know it was a big deal.

I went out 2 weeks before and bought 4 big tubs of sanitizing wipes (back when you could still find them in stores). I also got ingredients for hand sanitizer and made up a big batch (it was already too late to find that in stores). I had plans to pu only 1/2 as many ballot markers per table as we usually did, to keep people farther away from each other. The Board of Elections sent out emails assuring us that they were going to provide sanitary supplies to each polling station and they would let us set up our polls the evening before. That would allow us to really wipe the place down and start off as clean as possible. I had an anxious stomach all the day before but I packed my bags, double-checked my supplies and was ready to go do set-up at 6 PM Monday night.

Ted stuck his head in the room where I was sewing masks that afternoon and said that the governor had just said he was going to postpone the primary because he wasn’t convinced that the polls could be kept clean and social distancing maintained.

I was relieved. I really hadn’t been convinced that going ahead with the primary was a good idea, but felt it was my job. First I got a text cancelling early set-up. My courrier delivery of the thumb drive to update my list of who has voted early in my precinct never arrived. That told me the election was indeed off. I kept checking my email and finally got a message: the Governor has officially stopped in-person voting until June, but mail-in ballots can still be requested and sent in. Whew.
I unpacked my election bags, showered and put on my PJ’s and finally admitted to myself how worried I had been about going ahead with the election.

But people on Facebook started saying “No, the Governor tried but a judge ruled that we have to have the election tomorrow”.
No. Surely that’s wrong! Rumor! Specu-
Then an email from the Board: a judge over-ruled the governor. He can’t just postpone an election. Report to your polls at 5:30 AM tomorrow.

No. Are they nuts? We don’t have our data updates! We now have to set up AND SANITIZE the whole area in just an hour! Half my normal election crew is over 65 and two of them had heart issues last year! They have no business being out in public during an epidemic!
I felt a headache start as I reluctantly started re-packing my election supplies.
“Ted, I’m scared” I admitted. “I don’t feel safe”.
“Just don’t go” he said.
“I’m the Location Manager! I have the keys! If I don’t show up, nobody votes in precinct 1129. I have to go. I guess I just hope nobody in the precinct comes out to vote… which feels wrong. But the whole world is wrong right now.”

Finally around 11 PM it was resolved. The director of Public Health declared a health emergency and that gave DeWine the authority needed to postpone the primary. “Stand Down” messages were sent out to poll workers.
I still didn’t sleep well. I stood looking out the window the next morning and thought What about voters who didn’t have their TV’s on and don’t know it’s all been cancelled? What will they think when they show up at the church and the doors are locked and the lights are off?

It seemed to me I had a responsibility to ‘my’ voters, who depend on me to get their votes on record. I typed up a quick notice on my computer explaining what had happened and urging them to request an absentee ballot and vote now instead of waiting for June (because who knows what the world will be like then?) I drove to the church where I taped it to the front door and felt a little better as I drove away. Because voting is still my jam, folks.

A woman has come forward and alleged that, when he was in high school, Supreme Court nominee (and guy who gave me the skeevs the first time I saw him) Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her. 
And the entire country knows- that won't matter.

Mere sexual assault? He only held her down, covered her mouth with his hand and tried to rip her clothes off? Pffff.
51 U.S. senators would vote to confirm Kavanaugh if it came out he’d been imprisoning a woman in his toolshed since 1996!
~ Susan Collins would nod her head sympathetically- and then vote with the party.
~ Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse would write front page op-eds condemning him for kidnapping and sexual slavery, and then vote to confirm 24 hours later.
~ Donald Trump would spend a week attacking the kidnapped woman on social media. 
~ Melania would visit three elementary schools that same week with an anti-bullying message.
~ Paul Ryan would make a brief statement about the president’s tweets, noting that he had no reason to doubt the woman’s story that she had been kept against her will in the tool shed for 22 years, and then he would slowly drift away, like an escaped balloon." 
~ FOX would call her "No Angel", discuss her frequent detentions in HS and a speeding ticket in 2004.
~ Giuliani would insist that letting a woman live in your toolshed isn't really a crime, and lots of folks do it.
~ Newt Gingrich would remind us that Bill Clinton lied about having sex, so 'both sides'.
~ Lindsey Graham would say that he hadn't actually seen the tool shed so he has no opinion on the issue.
~ Lou Dobbs would suggest that the democrats put that toolshed in Kavanaugh's yard so they could keep him off the court 20 years later.
~ Megyn Kelly would suggest that maybe the woman was actually stalking Kavanaugh and chose to lock herself in the tool shed to be near her.

I am so saddened by the people who are saying that President Trump's comment: "They're not people. They're animals." is Okay because "He was only talking about those MS-13 gang members."
It's not. 
It's absolutely not.

Consider the premise: gang members are criminals, therefore they are less-than-human. (Therefore not deserving of due process- we'll get to that in a minute)
But if criminals are not people- society needs some clarification.
~ At what level of criminal activity does a person become a not-person? What about someone who obstructs justice and colludes with a foreign adversary to subvert democracy: not a person?
~ Say it must be a violent crime. How about if a LOT of people are hurt by this person, but not directly? Like if someone cuts funding for a children's health insurance program, endangering the lives of thousands of kids. Or cuts regulations, allowing more toxins in the air and water, so that people get ill? Is that guy an animal?
~ Last summer Eric Trump said that Democrats aren't people, because they won't do what his dad wants- so it seems like the bar is pretty low. (Unless they declaring the DNC a gang) Low enough that to Donald Trump, just being an undocumented immigrant is enough to put you in the "animal" club.
~ How much evidence do we need to have that someone is just an animal because they are in a gang? Trump's comment was prompted by a sheriff complaining that she has to prove that someone is a gang member to be allowed to kick them out of the country for being in a gang. Oh no- how unfair!  Why can't we just kick out anyone we want and if they're not actually MS-13- oh well. They're an immigrant anyway, so it's not like it matters.
~ And who gets to decide the ground rules?  Silly question! The answer to this, and every question like it is- Donald Trump, of course. Hey, remember when Donald Trump was practically salivating to get the Central Park 5 kids executed, taking out a full page ad in the paper begging New York to bring back the death penalty just to get thse inhuman scum put down like they deserved… and they were innocent?

I reject the entire premise.
 
Words matter. Dehumanizing the 'other' is an old and disgusting tactic that allows people to do the most despicable things because hey- they're not really people. The military uses it to overcome the reluctance draftees might have for sshooting another 18 year old kid in the face: those Japs are just rats. 
Mobs use it too.Gays aren't people. The Tutsi's are just cockroaches. Immigrants are animals. We're supposed to treat people with basic decency, and follow the laws… but if they aren't even people… it releases the societal restraints.

People are people. Some are good people. Some are bad. Some are a little of both. And there are laws that govern how we treat the bad ones, and they need to be followed. For one thing- sometimes you're mistaken and they're not bad. Or they did a bad thing, but for reasons you aren't aware of.
But mostly because we become bad people when we mistreat others- even those we consider bad. It diminishes us to drop down to their level.
And if we are now bad people… maybe we're animals too.

A little perspective:

Joe Biden called what was recently said about John McCain at a White House staff meeting (that he's dying anyway so why worry about how he would vote)  "rock bottom".
It wasn't.
That comment; that casual dismissal of the life and death of a good man as no longer relevant because he won't be able to vote against the Trumpers for much longer, is merely the harm being done to vulnerable Americans every day finally trickling UP to the powerful.

John McCain is ending his days surrounded by family and friends, and such casual cruelty won't hurt him. Millions of people are being hurt, and even killed, by the policies and by the Knock-the-Crap-outta-them attitude Trump signals his followers to adopt.