NY Dispatch: On Sunday the 18th a ‘rona car rally in support of the president invaded my town. They drove up and down Main Street in their pickups and SUVs, shouting, honking, and waving the flag of their leader. I learned later that they circulated around Westchester making a general nuisance of themselves. At the time I was concerned that they had a larger agenda of voter intimidation, especially since their parade was a week before early voting started in New York. So it came as no surprise that I saw his other loyalists shutting down highways, trying to run a Biden/Harris bus off the highway, and sideswiping a vehicle in Texas. The president tweeted his support of their reckless endangerment.
The reaction from his supporters, whom he has called upon to rise up, has generated fear of what might happen if he isn’t reelected. Businesses are boarding their windows to prepare for the aftermath of the election, as if they were preparing for a natural disaster. I’ve heard concern that there will be a civil war between his supporters and Black Lives Matter protestors, with violence coming from both sides. This is fear mongering.
On one side you have a diverse group of predominately young people peacefully protesting against systemic racism and everything that encompasses: racial profiling, redlining of real estate, economic inequality, unequal treatment by the legal system, underfunded schools and neighborhoods, lack of access to healthcare, and the frequent murder of Black men by police for perceived crimes, along with an endless list of other alarming concerns. BLM is trying to draw attention to these problems, force an overdue national conversation about race, and work toward a more equitable society that doesn’t have different realities depending on the shade of your skin.
On the other side you have a bunch of angry white people who are supporting an impeached president/reality TV star. They are driving recklessly and endangering lives. We have much more of a reason to fear these aggressive people who are are looking for a fight. They are the ones who have assaulted Americans, have plotted to kill people in the media, have threatened medical experts and politicians, have beaten people who asked them to put on a mask, who have marched through our towns with Tiki torches, who have plotted to kidnap the Governor of Michigan, and have crossed state lines to murder protestors like hunting game. These home grown terrorists are not going to go quietly, and the are not going to just disappear if Joe Biden is elected. They won’t trust any election result.
This is the first president in American History who had openly threatened the electoral process, has claimed that it is fraudulent if he doesn’t win, and has repeatedly refused to transfer power. He has lied about electoral fraud since his election, claiming without evidence that millions voted illegally, that mail-in ballots are ripe for fraud, and that the Democrats are trying to steal the election. He has called the result into question before the votes have been tallied. We may not have a clear result tomorrow. It may take days, even weeks, before we know the outcome, and there are already numerous election-related lawsuits pending that will cause further delays. We may anticipate that his people will go on the offensive if they don’t get their way. It is going to be a long November.
Today I am grateful for Ayanna Pressley. She grew up on the north side of Chicago and was voted “most likely to be mayor of Chicago” in high school. After graduating from Boston University, she worked with Joseph Kennedy II and John Kerry. She was the first woman of color to serve on the Boston City Council, and was elected to the US House of Representatives in the 2018. She is closely affiliated with other women of color in Congress who are commonly known as The Squad. As the survivor of child sexual abuse and sexual assault, Pressley has made ending sexual violence a priority of her work in Congress. She supports decriminalizing sex work to help protect marginalized people, especially transgender women of color. At the beginning of 2020 she revealed her diagnosis of alopecia areata, which caused her to lose all of her hair. She has emerged bold, bald, and beautiful.