Dear Papa,
I love you.
I have to start there because love is really what this diary is about. I know you love me. You have given me so much. I am so incredibly grateful for all that you have done for me – and for most of the choices you made in raising me, even though our religious and political ideologies have been deeply at odds since I was in middle school. And it’s just that – the very fact that I know how much you love me… which makes me feel so conflicted and confused. I don’t think you cast your vote in malice. You’re no KKK sympathizer. I just think you’re brainwashed by Fox “News” and Rush Limbaugh. I know a lot of misinformation comes your way on a day-to-day basis. That’s your choice of programming, of course, but you’re an intelligent man. You are not so sheepish and stupid that you couldn’t have sifted through the nonsense if you’d so chosen. You just didn’t want to bother.
I wish you had thought more about what you were doing Tuesday afternoon.
More specifically, I wish you had thought more about me when you cast your vote.
I wish you had thought about the reality that I’m a mentally ill woman who also suffers from a neurological condition. My health issues are pretty expensive to treat. I take six medications daily to stay functional. Some of them are not cheap.
I wish you had thought about the fact that I work for a non-profit mental health agency which relies almost entirely on government funding for mental health services. I really need my job.
I wish you had thought about how much I love my girlfriend, who I would someday like to marry – maybe even here, in Alabama. (She’ll be with me at Thanksgiving this year, by the way. Thank you for inviting and welcoming her.)
I wish you had thought about my girlfriend’s sudden recent health crisis, which may be ongoing, and which currently prevents her from working anywhere which would offer her health insurance. She has Obamacare.
I wish you had thought about the way the Supreme Court affects me personally. Would a hyper-conservative SCOTUS really seem such a gleeful prospect to you if you fully understood the implications for all women?
I wish you had thought about how much I care about the adolescents I treat in our substance abuse program. Most of them live in poverty. They rely on public schools, food assistance, Medicaid. Many of them are African American or Latino, making them especially easy targets for law enforcement and institutionalized racism in a Trump administration.
I wish you had thought about the fact that I am proud to be a woman and believe in feminist values. I believe I am worth just as much as a man. Will little girls growing up in Trump’s America be sure of that?
I wish you had thought about how it feels for me, as a woman, to know that boasting publicly about groping women without their consent is a behavior which doesn’t appall the American public sufficiently to deny the braggart the presidency.
I wish you had thought about what “Make America Great Again” means to someone like me: A bipolar, narcoleptic mental health worker, employed by a government-funded program, who hopes to one day marry her Obamacare-insured same-sex partner in the Deep South.
Actually, I wish you had thought about me at all when you cast your vote. Over the years, you have put so much thought and time and money and energy and effort into making sure I have a good life. Maybe you think you can protect me, despite my disadvantages, because you’ll be here for me? But you won’t always be here. And there are a lot of other women out there just like me who don’t have a father like you – who were never so blessed. And YES, I was – am – so very, very blessed. Through all the struggles over all the years, I have never doubted that I am loved. You did much to show it — so much to teach me that. Your political ignorance cannot detract a lifetime of love and time and support and dedication.
I don’t know about the rest of you fathers out there. Of those who voted for Trump, my guess is that most of you love your daughters much like mine loves me. And as for us? The daughters against whom you cast your votes? Most of us – the vast majority, in fact – will go on loving you anyway. And hey, realistically, I can’t pretend that many of your daughters didn’t cast the same vote that you did. I just have to have faith… in my father… and in many of you… that you did not truly realize what you were doing.
To my father, and to every father who voted with him, I have to believe – I have to have faith – that you did not really understand what you were choosing. I must believe that.
I must.
(PLEASE: If anyone chooses to comment in this diary, I would thank you for being respectful. My father has poor judgment about politics, but I do not believe that he is a bad person. I do not condemn everyone who voted for Donald Trump. Many of them are hateful, yes, but many others are just ignorant or afraid. With regard to the latter, I am sad for them. And I believe they will come to regret their choice. Then I will be sadder for them still.)