sometimes smack-dab is based on something we saw or heard. sometimes smack-dab is completely made-up. and sometimes smack-dab is autobiographical. this time – this cartoon – is most definitely that – from the first person.

i do lay awake – wide awake – at night thinking about this election. i spend hours thinking…thinking about the issues at hand, thinking about what is at risk, thinking about what the fallout could be, thinking about what others are thinking. particularly people i love and care about.

it worries me that there is bandwagon-energy-infused-reactionary-anger that is blocking the good and rational, critical-thinking hearts of voters ensconced in maga-world.

it alarms me that the screaming-fired-up propaganda thwarts people’s true consideration of reality, of how their votes would affect those they purport to care about, of how this country would change from by-the-people-for-the-people to under-the-thumb-of-autocracy – the very fascism my sweet poppo, 20’s dad, my brother-in-law, david’s nephew, dear friends fought and fight against.

it disappoints me to the core for my daughter’s future to think that the diminished rights of women my sweet momma endured – and which she gratefully watched as that ever-so-slowly changed – would once again fall under a patriarchal iron fist.

it devastates me that there are people – who i clearly know – for a maga vote is a vote against LGBTQIA rights – who will vote against the possibility of my son’s right to marry, his right to possibly adopt a child some day if he would wish to.

it confounds me that the same people who are on medicare and receive social security, or whose children go to public schools, or who subscribe to healthcare via the affordable care act or medicaid, would want to change these social programs in any way that negatively affects their benefits or those who follow them.

it confuses me that people would vote for the further pushing-under-water of the middle class and for exponential growth for the wealthy, when most people in this country are just getting by and making the chasm between classes even wider would elicit even more emotional division and even less potential, fewer possibilities.

it disgusts me that people would wish for the tiny children of our country to look up to this person they will vote for who has so little integrity, who is a puppet to the biggest of big money, who is down-right mean-spirited in every arena, who is a narcissistic criminal, who is apparently soul-less. i can’t fathom telling my three-year-old, my eight-year-old, my twelve-year-old, my teenager, “this – THIS – is the best man to be our president.” i can’t wrap my head around gifting my children, my grandchildren, my great-children or this democracy with THAT as a legacy.

so i lay awake at night. wide awake. i think about what people are thinking about. i wonder what they care about, who they care about. i worry if it’s just too late to hope that they are thinking or caring.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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