#election campaignsigns

[godandotherconstructs]

Campaign Signs, Empathy, and Optimism

I hate campaign signs. The ones for Trump elicit feelings of disdain toward people I don’t even know. I judge and presume and sometimes even yell at them out loud because I’m alone in my car and it feels good. The signs for Biden make me feel slightly better, but also remind me that the bigger font should spell Warren, or Harris, or Clinton for that matter, which makes me a little crazy too.

I’ve always considered myself empathetic, able to put myself in other’s shoes, but these days, it’s love thy neighbor, but not the one with the Trump sign. I wish campaign signs were illegal. I don’t think they change minds. Not to mention the enormous waste. And speaking of enormous, this year, yard signs have metastasized into banners the size of billboards, visually screaming candidate’s names, stoking the rage of anyone driving by who disagrees, and ruining what should have been a nice drive to the apple orchard.

I fear we’re losing our collective minds, and mother nature’s alarm bells are ringing on ears that are going deaf from all the noise.

Recently, I laid in bed listening over and over again to a tape of Melania Trump saying, “who the f..k cares about Christmas.” I was crying I was laughing so hard – an inappropriate response, sure, but I was tired and slap happy from Debate Week, which was also Raging Fires Out of Control Week, Greenland Ice Melt Week, and Conflict Escalating Between Armenia and Azerbaijan Week, all of it drowned out by Trump World.

The morning after the Melania tapes, I read about the president’s Covid diagnosis and wondered whether or not to believe it. After it became apparent that it was true, and then seeing his colorless face while he made comments from the hospital, I actually felt sorry for him, thinking that he was likely scared, staring down his own mortality. But that empathy didn’t last. His breathtaking self-centeredness a few short days later, when he ripped off his mask and walked into the White House disregarding everyone around him, followed by his increasingly divisive and outrageous rants, made it impossible for me to sustain it.  

This drama we’ve been living within for the last four years is exhausting, and as the election gets close, too many of us spend an inordinate amount of time scrolling through the news, fearing what might happen next.  If only this were fiction. The writers would be instructed to tone things down, that the story line is preposterous, the pace too frenetic, and the dialogue grating and repetitive.  Editors would point out that there is nothing redeeming about the main character, and direct them to give him at least an ounce of humanity – the ounce I thought I saw for a brief moment a few days ago.

I’m slightly embarrassed that I entertained the possibility of a humbling, a reckoning, possibly even redemption, when the reality of Trump is so obvious and consistent.

I wish that I could pull an all-nighter, binge on this god-awful series and get it over with.

Since that’s not an option, I’ll look at the polls, try to be hopeful, and do what I can between now and Nov. 3rd  to increase the odds of a satisfying ending.