ACaliGirlTalks

Something significant and profound happened to me within days of Vice President Kamala Harris replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic Nominee for President– I felt my body relax. I had hope again for America. The groundswell of excitement continues to build as she and her VP pick Tim Walz campaign across the country. Harris is trouncing Trump in every new poll that comes out. Not only has my body relaxed, my mental health has benefited the most.

My mental health had gotten very, very bad. So bad I had begun to google how to move to another country, because I knew there was no way I could stay in what would inevitably become Gilead. Project 2025 lays out their plan to criminalize women for abortions and actually track women’s menstrual periods! What the actual fuck?? Hell no. I could not stay here and live under a Trump dictatorship. And I’m not alone–in these last two weeks there’s been a collective sigh of relief from at least half a nation of people who feel like me; embracing the sudden relief that Trump will most likely lose by a landslide and democracy will be saved. That’s how close to the edge my mental health has been.

I was too scared to admit Biden wasn’t going to get re-elected simply due to all the media emphasis on his age and I began to desperately fear another Trump White House. It was all beginning to take its toll on me, which accelerated after Bidens’ disastrous performance at the first debate and everyone calling for him to step down. It was maddening that Biden’s opponent— who spewed lie after lie— was and is a 34-time convicted felon, sexual predator and fraudster, but yet everyone felt Biden needed to step down. He might have been having some cognitive issues, but at least Biden is undeniably a good and honorable man who stood for democracy. No longer does the office of the President of the United States hold any sort of respect or honor. Convicted felons can’t even vote let alone get hired at most jobs but yet one can run for president…??? My brain hurts just writing this.

My mental health decline first began when Trump got elected in 2016, but it began to accelerate during his administration. First came Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2017, then Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2018 where his fake ugly cry was believed over Christine Blasy-Ford’s testimony of him sexually assaulting her. And then of course, the confirmation of Coney-Barrett in 2020 and the January 6th, 2021 insurrection and Trump’s unwilliingness to accept defeat, implementing fake electors and calling for his vice president to be hanged for not being “loyal” to him and choosing the Constitution over him. And the millions of people he somehow convinced the election was “stolen” from him despite 64 court cases proving this not to be true, and not having any actual proof, he and his followers keep saying it. 

But it was the overturning of Roe v Wade that set my mental decline into high gear, after Kavanaugh and the other conservative justices publicly declared it was “precedent” and would not be overturned. I was 12 when the Roe v Wade decision was made in 1973; this was a landmark decision in favor of a woman’s right to bodily autonomy.  I remember my mom’s exclamations of joy when the decision came down, and I felt that this was bigger than life somehow, that this must’ve been the crowning glory of the women’s liberation movement.  After all, women couldn’t establish their own credit until 1974, passed by Republican Gerald Ford. Women began to realize being a homemaker and subservient to a man wasn’t all that fulfilling and began to work outside the home and even pursue an education. 1976 was a big year for women: a court case finally made sexual harassment in the workplace illegal, California governor Ronald Reagan (a Republican) passed the very first no-fault divorce bill, and the first safe and effective birth control pill was introduced. My own state of Wisconsin defaulted to a 1849 law outlawing abortion until it was thankfully overturned by a democratic judge in 2023. Women have been fighting for bodily autonomy basically their whole lives, for as long as we have been a nation.The Equal Rights Amendment was initially introduced in 1923–three years after women were given the right to vote–and it wasn’t until 1972 that it was approved by the Senate, but never ratified due intense opposition from conservative groups. Yes, even back in 1972, the conservatives wanted to keep women from being treated as equal citizens. (The ERA has been ratified by 38 states but has not been made a constitutional amendment. This can only be done by a federal court order). 

The unfairness of it all swirling in my head began to totally consume me. I realized that as the election kept getting closer, I was getting more and more desperate. I was spending more and more time online, often posting anti-Trump news clips and arguing with Trump supporters (no wonder I felt I was having a mental breakdown!) I thought for sure Trumps’ felony convictions would negatively affect his chances of winning re-election, but they didn’t. If anything, it made his followers dig their heels in deeper. As with the assassination attempt, he’s totally “Teflon Don”. I have felt frantic. And I hated that he and his ilk were here in my beautiful city, which he named “horrible”. And the rise of his popularity capitulated at the RNC and it looked as if a win was all but expected.

But now, thanks to the fervor of democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris, I have reason to exhale. Millions of disaffected Americans who didn’t want either old white man–especially the younger generations–along with the “Never Trumpers” and the most misunderstood group of people of all, the “undecideds”,  finally have a candidate they can finally feel excited about. Without the focus on Old Man Biden, Old Man Trump’s meandering speeches and incomprehensible blatherings are apparent like never before. (And why isn’t there more media attention to the 30-second brain fart at his rally in Montana this week?). Between calling Hannibal Lecter “a good man”, and that he “didn’t know” Kamala Harris was black and calling himself “God’s Chosen One”, Trumps’ cognitive decline is more glaring than ever. People–and I mean Republicans as well as everyone who stopped paying attention because they were so tuned out—are finally starting to notice. And they’re turning away from him and towards Kamala in droves.

But yet, the scariest part of all is, WHEN he loses the election in November, he’s promised a “bloodbath”. January 6th was mere kids’ play. A lot of his idiot supporters actually want a civil war. These are the same people that want a dictatorship. After all, Trump did say he loves the uneducated. As long as people trust every lie that comes out of his mouth, they don’t have to do the hard work to research that what he is actually saying is dangerous. My own father laughed at me when I told him months ago that he was using Hitlers’ own playbook. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people defend him saying, “he didn’t MEAN that, what he MEANT was….” All the pretzel-twisting to change what he actually says (mostly pejoratives, cruel mud-slinging and chest-pounding unearned bravado) to try to prove he was “joking” or “not serious” and insult those like me who believe him when he says he’s going to deport millions of people, cut social security, pardon all those who participated in the attack on our capital and yes, end same-sex marriage and no-fault divorce. He may be the worst pathological liar ever; that “everyone wants abortion illegal”, and that immigrants are taking “black jobs” (whatever the fuck THAT means) but when he says he chose JD Vance because Vance told him that he would do “what Pence wouldn’t”, and that’s choose Trump over the Constitution and overturn a fair election so he could stay president, I BELIEVE HIM. 

All I know is, the remedy for my mental health has been the hope and joy of a probable win of the very first woman president, and a black woman at that. Two things Trump despises–women and someone of color. She is ferocious and fierce AND twenty years his junior. But most importantly, she is not afraid of him. She will tear him to shreds in the debates, because she will focus on facts and he will stand there and lie, and attack her for “suddenly being black” and all the false narratives he and his cult followers accuse her of (like being a “border czar”). 

I finally have hope for America, and despite how hard Trump and his yes-men will try to overturn her win, she WILL win, and when Kamala Harris wins the presidency come November, we all win, especially women. This is our fight more than anything, and I truly cannot fathom ANY woman voting for a misogynistic man who brags about grabbing women by the pussy and enjoying chipping away at all of our rights. This isn’t about immigration or the price of gasoline. This is about making sure we still have the right to free speech and that we still have a justice department, and the checks and balances of our legal system intact. Trump and his cronies want to do away with all of that and he fully intends to stay in office until his death. We simply cannot allow this to happen. Get out and vote!!! #HarrisWalz2024