This has been a weird day.
I sat down to do my usual Wednesday morning activism and was stopped by the realization that I didn't feel comfortable doing the first thing on my list—writing a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kelly urging him to make sure our immigration policies are not enforced in a cruel and dehumanizing manner—was not something I felt comfortable doing while my husband's green card renewal is pending.
And that realization depressed me so much that I couldn't muster the willpower to make any other calls. I did donate to Mi Familia Vota and Jon Ossoff's campaign in the special election in Georgia.
I thought I might have a hard time focusing on work, but posting my Tungsten Hippo recommendation for the week helped me snap out of my funk a bit. I downloaded this week's book on a whim and ended up really enjoying it. It is the sort of book that will stick with me for awhile. You can probably expect a future blog post about what it means to be well even if you are not fully healthy (in my case, I will always have asthma and a somewhat screwed up right arm from an old repetitive strain injury).
I struggled a bit until lunch time, but did some good work for a client after lunch, then went for a run and enjoyed what was really a glorious day, and came back and just powered through my to do list.
In the end, I finished everything on my to do list (which is rare: I aim to have one or two items as "stretch goals" for the day) and even picked something else off my office kanban board and finished that.
When I finished work for the day, the news was still all about Trump's speech last night. I didn't watch it, because why listen to someone who always lies? But I found the fawning coverage of his ability to tell his lies without sounding unhinged depressing, so I figured it would be another night of a self-imposed news blackout.
I walked to my kids' school and picked them up, made dinner, and enjoyed talking to my kids about their day while we ate. Then my phone buzzed. It turned out to be a missing child alert (that child has been found, safe). But while I had my phone in my hand, I opened Twitter... and holy cow, my timeline was on fire with the news about Sessions. And with justification. He lied during his confirmation hearing about contacts with Russian officials. He was at one point and may still be a target of an investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence. He must recuse himself from the ongoing investigation. A special prosecutor must be named. In a normal administration, he'd be resigning, too. But this is not a normal administration, so my money is on him trying to hang on and more damaging things coming out until he is finally forced to resign. Of course, I could wake up tomorrow morning to find he's resigned. Who knows.
I am more convinced than ever that if we actually get an independent investigation into this entire mess, people will end up in jail. But I am not convinced we'll get that investigation, or at least not in a timely manner. I have resigned myself to having to wait until after the 2018 election for a proper investigation. If the Democrats don't take the House in that election, though, we might not get one even then.
Meanwhile, the horrifying VOICE policy will be enacted. The administration will continue to vilify and dehumanize immigrants, particularly immigrants with brown skin. They will continue to ignore hate crimes committed against people with brown skin. They will continue to ignore the rising Antisemitism. An alarming number of Americans will cheer this. An even more alarming number will just go along, perhaps because they don't want to offend the ones cheering by implying they might be racist, perhaps because they just don't want to think about it.
We are in a race. Can we get rid of this administration, or at least the worst actors in it, before they lead us to do something so horrific and shameful that future generations of schoolchildren read about it and wonder how we could have let such a thing happen?
I do not know the answer to that. I do not know how best to try to win the race. I guess I will rally and call my Senators and Representative tomorrow morning to let them know I think Sessions should resign and that I want them to pressure him to do so. I will continue to fax the House Oversight Committee (since their voice mail is always full) to tell them they should investigate the myriad conflicts of interest swirling around this administration. I will raise my small voice and contradict the dehumanization of immigrants, documented and undocumented. I will speak up against Antisemitism and Islamophobia and racism as the poisons of our society that they are.
That is all I know how to do. I do not know if it will be enough.
And I have started my meditative yoga practice again, because I think my days are going to be weird for awhile and I need to find a way to cope that doesn't turn me into one of those people going along with something horrifying just because I don't want to think about the mess we're in.
Oh my goodness.
ReplyDeleteI was feeling in a funk this week and last re: election stuff. (I think it was trump suggesting that Jewish people are calling in bomb threats and destroying their own cemeteries and that not getting the media treatment it deserved.). And it was super easy to get through to my reps, so you're not the only one.
This sessions news (which I didn't know about) has energized me though. I'll be making some calls.