I'm a worrywart, Debbie Downer, glass-half-empty sort of gal. My husband, in his typically sunny way, has been trying to calm me down about the election and telling me to just tune out if it's bothering me so much. But, I just can't. I tell myself I'll not get online during my lunch break. Tell myself not to listen to the latest Best of the Left podcast. Tell myself to ignore what's happening - but then I see the inevitable Romney sign or overhear some Tea Party types talking and I'm back to it, bringing more queasiness & disrupted sleep.
So, my husband is sick of it and is sensitive to what my kvetching does to our 6 year old. I live in wingnut land and know few progressives (and those I know aren't as obsessed as I am). My lovely grandmother is the only person who lets me indulge in the gloomy doom "what ifs" - I get the trait from her, after all. But it's only during our weekly phone calls because she lives far away and doesn't have internet access.
Grandma is a lone Democrat in her tiny East Texas community and has had lifelong friendships dissolve in the past year over politics. The preacher at her small Baptist church has started going on rants worthy Rush Limbaugh. She's decided to skip services for the time being. She's worried about her future, my mom's eventual retirement, and what kind of country her great-grandchildren will be inheriting. Me too, Grandma. Me too.
Never mind global climate change! I can't even think about that. I avoid articles about it because it just seems so far beyond me, and so far gone, that I just fall into despair. Technology and science are being derided by one-half of the people "in charge" of our country. Hell, they're deriding education in general! When they're ballsy enough to state that our schools shouldn't teach critical thinking? It's unbelievable.
My job is easily outsourceable. My husband's job depends on public schools being open and funded. We have very little savings, lots of debt, and no family money/rich uncles to help us relocate if needed.
I'm afraid. Really, truly scared. I fear if the Republicans are able to "win" through suppression, intimidation, and propaganda that this will be the last actual election this country will have. Rove's permanent GOP majority will be realized. As a working class/middle income non-theist lady with young children, nothing could be scarier. And then I think about those who would be even worse off - American citizens who are Muslim, LGBT, the "liberal elite" who are being called out daily as "enemies" - what will happen to them?
I can't shake the feeling that we're on the edge of Very Bad Things. I know how it sounds, believe me, but are there others out there who feel it?