My dad would have been 81 on Veteran’s Day. He served during the time of the Korean War but was stateside in NC where I now live. He didn’t really revel in his service and the stories that he did tell in that regard was about NC and the way his friends were treated than about the service itself. My dad was white but had many black friends while growing up. He kept that tradition in the Army even travelling back to PA with his friend who would have to lie in the back floorboard, under a blanket for fear of being caught in a car with a white man in the South. My dad went on to become a principal of the local school for the mentally challenged during which time he and my mom traveled the county campaigning for a bond issue to build a workshop for the adult program, that workshop exists to this day. I make a point of driving by it every time I return to Ohio. It is a monument to the better angels of my hometown. On Tuesday my home county went to Trump 57 — 38.
I was raised to value diversity, protect those that need help, stand against bullies, and that racism was vile and stupid. My dad told me stories about the NC of the early to mid 1950’s, segregated drive in theaters, the Klan running amok, even black soldiers refusing treatment from his black superior in the clinic my dad helped staff, and a host of other such indignities. Later I saw how his students were treated and knew what he was standing up to. Later as it became clear I was gay, I saw my dad handle it with grace and strength.
I lost my dad shortly after another divisive election (the passage of Amendment 1 which banned marriage equality in NC) and the long drive up to Ohio was so awful. After that I returned for the final days of the school year as faculty adviser for the GSA at my school. It was a bitter, depressing time. Now I am at a different school in a different part of NC. We currently don’t have a GSA though I am hoping that changes soon. My school is diverse with several children of immigrants along with both black and white students. So far my school hasn’t be riven with the public strife that some others have. We haven’t had hoards of students shouting Trump or telling our students to go home. But privately there must be some worried students. I am out to the faculty but not to the students, though as a nearly 50 year old male who has never married and has no children I am aware of the assumptions that one makes.
It is during dark times like this that I most miss my dad. After the often bitter fighting I had to partake in at my old school in service of its GSA I am facing those fights again both at work and in society at large. Rank bigotry got fewer votes on Tuesday but it won total control of the government and apparently feel it has won the right to run amok in all of our lives. The fact is as a NC citizen I know just what a united GOP government is willing and able to do. The modern GOP is unbound by democratic norms. Even with our governor apparently being the only GOP loss in the nation there is serious talk of having him appoint two extra supreme court justices to make up for the one they lost in the election. This is on top of the state government attempting to redraw districts in localities, take over our state’s largest airport, change the way supreme court justices are elected, and of course passing HB2 in one day with no debate and no warning at a five figure cost for the special session.
Regardless of just how anti democratic Trump maybe, and quite frankly I suspect he is quite anti democratic, it is the ‘normal’ republicans about whom we need to worry. Here the brake was supposed to be the ‘moderate’ McCrory who instead signed nearly everything they wanted him to. Now the brake on Trump is supposed to be Congress, this would be the same Congress that held a moderate Supreme Court nomination without a hearing for a longer period of time than ever in history and they were rewarded for it. The same Congress that filibustered more appointees of Obama than had been done in all of history and they were rewarded for it. The same Congress that provided no cooperation whatsoever on any legislation favored by Obama even things that those same legislators on prior occasions. In short, this Congress has shown itself utterly unfazed by any democratic inclinations. They don’t care about public opinion, they don’t care about democratic norms, they don’t care about tradition, they don’t care about consistency, in short they will be no brake in the end.
I have no detailed idea what the near future holds for either me or this country but in terms of the country at least, it seems that the days will be dark. It is hard to see much positive in this. Unlike the passage of Amendment 1 it only seemed a matter of time before it was over ruled. Now we are facing a unified GOP which rules all three parts of government and a Supreme Court which will be lost for the rest of my life. Our treasury will be depleted to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Public sector unions are dead and so might private ones be as well. Locally there will be a Klan parade on the day of my gay chorus’ concert in December.
I hope we have a real election in 2018 but given the lack of respect that the Republicans have for democracy I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. A NC style voter repression bill is a near certainty given our present Congress. Unlimited funds with out disclosure in our elections an eternal problem.
May God help us, for frankly I don’t know who else can at this point.
