Damnit, and next

I spent Thursday morning and five hours yesterday going from Capitol to Senate to Supreme Court. I took the tunnel from Dirksen to Russell twice and was even admonished for inadvertently finding my way to the Senate subway in some subterranean space. With two friends, I visited the offices of Senators Leahy, Feinstein, Collins, Corker, Murkowski, Flake, Manchin, Cruz, and more. I wrote notes to almost all of them, left a not-in-your-fan club note in Cruz’s guest book, and spoke my mind politely but very firmly in front of a crowd in Manchin’s office. I was interviewed by NPR, Splinter, and Arizona PBS, and the only reason I share any of this is because none of it seems to have mattered. But I still think it does.

For way too long, I and so many of us have taken democracy for granted. It’s what America is, right? No. It’s what America can be if enough of us fight for that. Right now, we’re fast luges on an icy decline to an authoritarian state run by white Christian men (and not a few women) of the GOP. That would NEVER be a country that represents me or my husband or my children or most people I know and love. And, as such, it is unjust and intolerable to me.

Yesterday at the Senate, I heard a rape victim share her story as well as the fact that in doing so earlier that morning, she had been laughed at -laughed at to her face!- by a group wearing Women For Kavanaugh and I’m With Brett shirts. The cruelty in that renders me speechless. I am still speechless.

And today, when I listened to the roll call of senators casting votes for Kavanaugh, I wasn’t surprised but I was crushed.

I know that so many of us feel hopeless. That we should just give up. But to do so is to abdicate our democratic duties. To do so is to prove the naysayers’ point that democracy is but an idealistic figment, a farce.

If all I witnessed yesterday and Thursday and last week and all the days I’ve protested and marched and rallied and called and canvassed is any indication, democracy is tenuous but worth desperately fighting for. There are so many of us out there demanding change. What needs to happen now is that ALL OF US VOTE. Change can happen only if we storm the voting booths and make our voices heard.

Yes to every doubt you’ll likely raise: gerrymandering, voter suppression, cheating, PACs and other dark money, toxic everything, politicians who only care about their own positions of power.

But also: the rising tide of furious women who will not go back to anything except what we choose to; folks like Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams and Jacky Rosen and Jahana Hayes; the people who have already done what everyone said they couldn’t (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example); the people who will (whoever runs against Susan fucking Collins).

We saw in the Senate signs I never thought I’d see (see photos) and met so many staffers who thanked us and thanked us some more for being there. One of my dear friends flew in on the red eye from Portland so she could protest all day Friday. Another dear friend essentially moved onto the Capitol steps last week and may finally return home tonight.

All of us, regardless of what side you’re on, deserve better than what we’re getting. We deserve better than mealy-mouthed cowards (like Jeff Flake whose office door we found locked on Friday) and Lisa Murkowski who talked a big game but pulled her vote today because “Gaines would vote Aye if he were here so our votes would cancel each others out anyway.” We deserve better than old pissy white men like Grassley, Hatch, and Graham, who never bothered to take Dr. Ford or the FBI “investigation” remotely seriously but instead impeded both at every turn and in every way. We deserve better than the two-bit cheating imbecile who is our “president.” And we certainly deserve better than the angry liar who was just given what is arguably the largest honor with the greatest amount of sway in our country: a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

We have FOUR AND A HALF WEEKS until the midterms. How will you spend your time?

If you care at all about our democracy, you will do everything in your power to register and get people to vote. You will make calls, write postcards, knock on doors, and donate what you can. You will talk to neighbors and friends and people in the carpool lines and you will politely beg them to vote. If you’re uncomfortable, do it anyway, or do it quietly or with your checkbook. If you have daughters, do it so they won’t have to be assaulted and then disbelieved. If you have sons, do it because you want to raise men who would NEVER treat women as sub-human toys. If you’re an adult, question the ways you were socialized as children. If you have any hesitation, consider the rest of your life being run by people like these:

H/t Daily Kos

Change the narrative, y’all. Demand better. Demand different. Demand more. If you’re angry, stay angry. There’s a fuckload to be angry about, and as so many people have correctly noted, from righteous anger can come enormous growth and change.

We have four and a half weeks. Focus. If the Democrats don’t gain back at least the House, I think America buys itself a second Trump term. I do not think we can afford that in any way. Everything you feel now? Use it.

Resources:

Votesforwomen.co

Sisterdistrict.com

Host a Flip the House postcard-writing party: Flip the House

Swing Left

Some great candidates to support:

Beto O’Rourke (TX/Sen)

Kyrsten Sinema (AZ/Sen)

Jacky Rosen (NV/Sen)

Joe Donnelly (IN/Sen)

Heidi Heitkamp (ND/Sen)

Bill Nelson (FL/Sen)

Andrew Gillum (FL/gov)

Stacey Abrams (GA/gov)

Sean Casten (IL-6/House)

Mike Levin (CA-49/House)

Jahana Hayes (CT-5/House)

Let me know of folks you support, too!

This is what democracy looks like

Yesterday’s heartbreak and rage led to today’s feelings of nausea and fury, and so really, I had to do something. After a meeting and a doctor’s appointment, I met up with a friend -the aforementioned Pilates teacher- and hauled ass to the Supreme Court where we met up with another friend of mine, my Supreme Court-protest buddy, and then saw my forever resister sister.

After a vigorous rally on the steps of the Supreme Court, three of us marched to the Senate buildings for another protest. After walking in the damn front door and politely asking, “Can we come in?” a friend and I led a large group into the Dirksen building with the intention of visiting Lisa Murkowski’s office. Looking over the directory, however, our eyes froze over Mitch McConnell’s name: Russell building 317.

Can you imagine where we headed? Third floor.

On the way we met one of Senator Durbin’s aides, a delightful man who showed us exactly where to go and thanked us for being there. We cheered him with wild abandon. Guards helped us when we were stymied by the many buildings’ twists and turns, and before I knew it, we were marching through one of the underground tunnels and into Russell.

It’s a beautiful, grand place. The marble halls of power, the rotundas of history, the old school formality, the flags and medallions. In some awe, in hushed tones, we persisted. Right to 317.

I haven’t any idea how I ended up as the apparent representative of our group, but before I knew it I was writing a letter -on a red leather bound legal pad embossed “Senate”- to McConnell that we all signed. It ran the gamut from “sir, you serve your constituents” to “we remember the ‘let’s make Obama a one-term president’ obstruction” to Merrick Garland and here we are today.

It wasn’t lost on me that prior to my protest I had a GYN appointment and then had to leave the Senate building to get home in time for carpool; what women do. But it all felt so very therapeutic, a way to put rage and fear to work. This IS what democracy looks like, and I will fight to the end for it.

In the cab on the way home, a text came in: Flake has reversed course somewhat and is calling for an FBI investigation. Bless the women that confronted him in the elevator and all the Americans who have called, faxed, tweeted, written, and showed up in person. Murkowski supports his call. We have one week.

Make it count.

Senator Murkowski: 202-224-6665
Senator Collins: 202-224-2523
Senator Flake: 202-224-4521
Senator Manchin: 202-224-3954
Senator Heitkamp: 202-224-2043

Broken, and still so very angry

It has been raining here for days, weeks now really. It feels like a deluge, like something has broken, and the safety guards and gauges and pressure valves went wonky. They don’t work anymore.

I got the kids off to school and saw on Facebook that a dear friend and Holton-Arms alum was at the Senate building before the sun rose. She was waiting with other alums and friends in the hopes of witnessing Dr. Ford’s testimony and offering support. She posted a picture of current Holton seniors, young, in their uniforms, smiling earnestly and hopefully. In one I spotted one of the boys’ favorite babysitters. My heart burst with pride.

I went to Pilates shortly after. I didn’t feel like it what with the hearings looming, but I went to distract and also take care of myself. And because studio 2 on Thursday mornings feels like a mostly-warm community in which many of us have known each other for years. I walked in and could tell my teacher felt the weight of today. I saw an older friend who said she had a terribly sleepless night; she was thinking back to Anita Hill and forward to now.

Our teacher asked, “How are bodies today?” One woman started crying; another could barely contain her fury. Comments starting bursting forth despite the setting and place and time. Soon, a group hug commenced, men and women alike, ages 40-something to seventy-something. And then we attempted to turn our fury and fear to our cores.

Once home, one of my dearest friends came over, and we sat rapt and hurting and stunned and furious and nauseous. And also deeply moved by Dr. Ford’s incredible grace, courage, and earnest desire to help in any way with anything. I have no idea how she comported herself like that. At times it seemed to take everything she had while at others her composure seemed it must be some innate gift.

When she cried, it was silent and composed, measured, and heartbreaking to watch. So many of us cried with her, for her.

We cried that the GOP men were too cowardly to speak to her and so hired a “female assistant” to do.

We cried when Grassley repeatedly referred to Dr. Ford as “she," “her,” and “you.” She, her, you have a name.

We cried when she told us about her house having two front doors (so that she doesn’t feel trapped) even though that means “Our house doesn't look aesthetically pleasing from the curb.”

We cried when Leahy asked what she most remembered, and she replied that seared into her hippocampus is “the laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense…”

We cried when she said “I convinced myself that because Brett did not rape me, I should just forget about it and move on." We cried because we know the weight she has carried since that night.

We cried because we weren’t sure anything she said would change anything. We cried because women aren’t disposable doormats but are too often treated as pitiful lesser beings who should “get over it.”

We cried because it is inconceivable that she is lying.

We cried because after her testimony, Senator Orrin Hatch said Dr. Ford was “attractive.”

And then there was Brett. The smug, whiny, furious, spitting nails picture of privilege who played victim in the most grandiose and despicable of ways. The nominee to the highest court in the land who is supposed to be non-partisan but blamed everything angrily and openly on the Democrats and our continued fury about the Clintons and Trump.

He cried, he yelled, he interrupted, he accused. He did things that would have had a woman literally removed from the room or at least wholly discounted and laughed at. He said he was a victim, that what he has been through recently has been hell, that he was innocent, that every claim against him was nonsense, garbage. He said he would do anything to assist the judiciary committee but refuses to support an FBI investigation or hearing from his old blackout-drunk drinking buddy, Mark Judge. He is a man used to getting his way, and his anger was palpable whether you were in the hearing room or on a couch somewhere.

The Republican senators gnashed and cried with outrage and apology. “You shouldn’t be treated like this.” “You’re the one owed an apology.” You’re the victim, you are great, and on and on. They dismissed the “female assistant” and carried on as an old boys club of epic white proportion. If they had heard Dr. Ford, heard her at all, her story was now gone, replaced by a country club bad boy who has lied repeatedly and wants power. They all do. They are willing to self-immolate for it. Lindsey Graham was the scariest example of that, screaming with fury and disgust at his Democrat colleagues.

The face of the female aide beyond Graham says everything.

Tonight I went to middle school Back to School Night. I saw so many friends, I felt grateful for the community. To a T the women looked drawn, exhausted, broken, furious, defeated. I’m home now and it is pouring. The world feels broken and as if it’s crying out in pain.

Senator Corker has already said tonight that he’s voting for Kavanaugh. The confirmation seems a foregone conclusion. What does that say to women? About our value and worth? What does it say to victims of assault and mistreatment? What does it say to boys and men who mistreat? What does it say about the impartiality of the Supreme Court? What does it say about the future of America? Nothing good. I am so unbelievably angry.