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Elizabeth Heydary's avatar

I have a hard time reframing why people are voting for Trump- I mostly tell my kids people are unhappy with their lives now and they can’t see how Kamala as president could make it better—I usually add I don’t understand why they think Trump will make it better anyway.

They are well aware my sister’s husband is a Trump voter and I have said I am very happy their dad and I are both liberals and don’t have conflict around who we are voting for- I actually cried some reading this piece while my kids are sitting next to me watching their Saturday morning screen time. They know I am scared of the outcome. 2016 was awful. Reading about your then 5 yo waking up smiling made me think of my kids now (5 and almost 8 yo)—my boys absolutely believe Kamala will be president.

We have grieved my grandmother and my uncle’s death in the last 3 years, and we are experiencing anticipatory grief for 2 other family members with a glioblastoma diagnosis. My oldest’s best friend had to euthanize one of their foster cats this week on the week of his 8th birthday. We have had a lot of conversations about grieving and every year they seem to understand more.

The one piece of the conservative platform I understand is wanting to shield our kids—I wish I could shield my kids from the pain they have already experienced in their short lives. My MIL gave my husband and me a card for our 10 year anniversary that fit this current uncertainty—it said “Life will bring you pain all by itself. It’s your responsibility to create joy.”- Milton Erickson

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Alexandra Mannerings's avatar

I think the intent of this article is great, and agree so much with the recommendations on sharing your emotions in a safe way with your children. I also love the idea of using it to encourage activism and action - what a powerful lesson.

But I think it also misses the mark in two places; firstly, it fails to model actually not demonizing people who vote for Trump, and secondly it leaves out that as upsetting at 2016 was many of our fears were not realized and perhaps we are also unduly panicking here. Saying it’s hard even to WRITE that someone might not be an evil terrible human being because they disagree with you is not building the bridges we so desperately need in this country. In fact, I know people who have left the Democratic Party because they the same existential threats you describe in this article — because they feel the choice is better an unsavory character or death. While this doesn’t “make sense” to Kamala supporters, that’s my point, if you don’t actually understand that out there people feel the same things you do and often value many of the same things you do but come to different decisions, then you haven’t actually done the work to see their humanity.

Also, Uncertainty can be scary but it also means that the future isn’t known. Yes, a Trump win could mean harmful laws we don’t agree with and foreign policy that’s dangerous - it COULD mean very serious things. Or he could bluster around for four years on a massive ego trip but be checked by our other branches of power and possible do something useful. Or it could be somewhere in the middle. We don’t know. So why is part of handling anxiety not admitting that we don’t know what will happen and grounding ourselves in that? Or that or experience showed we survived once and can survive again?

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