Waking Up On November 9th

The problem is that this election has been dominated more by glib statements, heavily repeated rediculousness and terse quips than it has been a smart discussion of the issues.
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Well America, once again the lessons taught in Ghostbusters II are coming to the forefront. If we continue on this path of acknowledging and entertaining the rage-filled-diatribes pursued by so many of our citizens, a giant ocean of pink slime will rise up to terrorize us all. Weird art-restorationists will become our overlords and Vigo the Carpathian will replace Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill.

Because, here's the thing. No matter what any rant-filled talking head will have us believe, come November 9th we will all need to look each other in the eye again. As rally signs sail down in the wind and pundits look for new jobs, we will have to return to our lives. The angry cousins that we blocked on Facebook will still be related to us and the Twitter war we had with that one guy we knew for five minutes in 1998 will be forever archived on the Internet.

We will need to return to being the America we were before leaked pervy video's, discussions of emails, late-night Twitter rants and musings on kitty cats (a-hem) dominated our lives. And I am worried for our collective mental health.

Election years tend to bring out our most passionate voices. Everyone wants a seat at the table and we all feel it is our right to be heard. Yet, we get stuck trying to maintain a balance between having an informed, intellectual discussion and a culture which encourages us to talk in sound bites, 140 characters, viral posts and memes. Sure, some memes created in good fun are fine. Who doesn't love a snarky quote pasted over an image of Chuck Norris or Willy Wonka? The problem is that this election has been dominated more by glib statements, heavily repeated rediculousness and terse quips than it has been a smart discussion of the issues.

Let's consider the example of sexual assault, a topic which has become a cornerstone of contemporary elections. Four years ago we watched, horrified, as a conservative from Missouri declared that there is such a thing as "legitimate rape", a super-natural force field deployed by women's uterus during a rape to "shut down" pregnancy. How many ladies had to listen to or read statements questioning whether our bodies carry some special hormone which we can deploy as birth control at will? I felt then, and I continue to feel now, that I may go crazy if I have to listen to one more person with an opinion and vocal cords explain to me what rape is. Conversations about consent are omitted and, sadly, those of us who have dedicated our activism and/or research to the topic of violence against women are used to watching debates about sexual violence happen with little expert input. Late-night comedy shows such a Full Frontal, The Daily Show and Last-Week Tonight are certainly doing their part to demonstrate this hypocrisy, but even their contributions are reduced to momentary pieces of click-bait. Forget about including scholars or world-wide experts on violence against women. Any sort of intelligent life-forces are ignored in favor of inflammatory opinions. (To be fair, I think many news folks are sick of the mounting pressure by their overlord bosses to give a microphone to the next person with a crazy conspiracy theory. See this video of CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin and this SNL video mocking of the second debate.)

Such slight-of-hand tricks mean many issues which should get a proper unpacking during an election year are ignored. Instead, groups like Black Lives Matter are reduced to defining the word "life." Organizations supporting the rights of transgender people are spending their time explaining who should be allowed to use which bathroom. People whose passions rest in saving natural resources have their work redacted until all that remains is the question "Is global warming a thing?" In my city, needed conversations about security and guns after the Pulse shooting are given away to focus on profiling. Meanwhile, meaningful discussions of racism, transphobia and environmentalism (to name a few) are being tossed aside. Sound bites become a dangerous distraction from actually communicating ways to solve our problems. All of this seems to be happening at sky-high levels this year. Substance hasn't just taken a back seat, she is mashed on the floor of the luggage compartment with her friends common-sense and general decency.

An election year should be the time when we hear our leader's share their plans to help build a better country. Sure, my preference would be that these plans are laid out for us as a Hamilton-style cabinet rap battle. But, I will take thoughtful disagreements between people in any form I can get.

You can dismiss me for tilting at windmills or claim that this is the nature of politics. Whatever. As I see it, we are all hovering over that river of pink slime, just a moment away from having it carry us into a world where negativity rules and there are not enough dancing toasters to save us. We have a choice, America. Wake up on November 9th, put on some Jackie Wilson, and find a way to move forward, or allow a carefully-constructed rage machine to pull us down. I will be on the side of lifting love higher and higher.

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