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Acceptance and Fear: Two Sides of the Same Coin

I’ve mostly kept my political statements to snarky or snotty comments for the last few months. While I feel strongly about the election, I don’t like to alienate or antagonize people I care about who voted differently.

Here’s the thing though, and I need to be heard on this…

My candidate lost. I accept that. She didn’t appeal to everyone and I get it. The other guy won. I accept that too (even though there is a cloud that hangs over his election that cannot be ignored or forgotten). My very first vote was for Michael Dukakis, so I know how to accept losing an election. Al Gore didn’t win in 2000 either, but I accepted that, with a few grumbles.

 

The Republicans won the White House and the Congress in 2016 and I hate it but it happened.  I know my feelings about it are irrelevant.Storm Coming

My fears and concerns aren’t about having a Republican president. They are about having THAT man as our president. Even if you support him, you don’t have a clue about what he’ll do any more than I do. He’s a loose cannon in every sense of the word, and we have woken up to surprises every day since the election. EVERY DAY.  Maybe you love how unpredictable he is, but I don’t.

I am 100% serious when I say I expect one morning to wake up to find my civil rights have been stripped from me. I expect to wake up and find a national park has been turned over to Halliburton. I expect to wake up and find out PBS or NPR is off the air because they have been defunded. I expect to see buses filled with non-whites headed south. I expect to hear Russia cackling with glee because they’ve got something really dirty to hold over our heads, making us beholden to them. I expect peaceful protest to be illegal. I expect women to be unable to control their own futures because they do not have safe access to proper healthcare. These things can easily happen and we all know it.  The groundwork is being laid today.

Fear Graffiti

I am afraid. Deeply, truly afraid. I don’t need to “get over” this election, nor do I need to accept that Hillary lost.  She lost, and it is a fact. What I do need is proof that terrible things won’t happen to me or the people I love and NO ONE can give me this. This is where my anger and protest come from, not because I’m a sore loser.

This is real to me.  What is also real to me is the belief that his supporters are in danger too, but they’re never going to agree to that.  It’s just my opinion.

But if you think I’m just hung up on losing an election, you’re dead wrong.

Matt Grigsby

Matt Grigsby was born and raised in Redding but has often felt he should have been born in Italy. By day he's a computer analyst toiling for the public good and by night he searches airline websites for great travel deals. His interests include books, movies, prowling thrift shops for treasure and tricking his friends into cooking for him. One day he hopes to complete his quest in finding the best gelato shop in Italy.

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