There are a lot of feelings here, so please "bear" with me.
I've been on the verge of puking since last Sunday at 11 a.m. when I learned President Biden had dropped out.
And when I really think about it, I haven't felt good since April 2016.
That's when I was working for the Marysville School District as their community relations and communications coordinator.
When the Marysville School Board proposed tax ballot measures to fund a bond or a levy, I was primarily responsible for communicating it to the public and voters.
As a government entity, we were restricted to only giving facts and providing education about what a bond would accomplish. This bond would have funded new buildings for our oldest high school, middle school, and two elementary schools.
And because I was also one of the few people in the community with political experience, and I was young, motivated, and full of hope and enthusiasm, I was also primarily responsible for leading the campaign side of things.
A bond requires a supermajority, or at least 60 percent, to pass. In 2016, it failed with 50.53% of the vote.
I'll never forget Marysville School District Superintendent Berg talking to attendees at that election night "party." I don't know what she said. All I remember is my friend, parent, and campaign co-chair crying hysterically in the corner—like heaving uncontrollably with tears—while Dr. Berg did her best to speak around it. And I understood that feeling. She was shocked. We had worked desperately to get the bond passed, and for the first time, she was experiencing this kind of rejection from her community.
I was familiar with that feeling by now, but even so, the year had a rough start.
Then, on November 8, I kept a fake smile on at a Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps competition at the high school while the 2016 electoral vote results came in.
Looking back, I want to understand why an NJROTC competition was scheduled during one of the most consequential National Presidential Elections yet. But that whole year was one big fucking foreshadowing I totally seemed to miss.
Two girls on the bleachers in front of me started commenting on an Associated Press story, and I had to get home. I was suddenly profoundly distraught.
I had planned to stay calm that day, focus solely on my work, and watch the results when I got home with my annual election night ice cream and champagne. Both typically help, regardless of the outcomes.
But that day, a rough year became a rough decade.
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I'm not sure how I didn't see all this coming. I had surely felt the wrath against me and people like me all year, and even more in the years after 2016.
We really should have known, and Trump, Bernie, and Biden supporters were certainly not shy about telling us that.
People I typically never saw posts from suddenly were all over my page with Trump hats, posting needlessly rude proclamations about not being racist. Bernie Sanders supporters were unapologetically mansplaining and being gigantic assholes on the internet. All these dudes I knew, who not once spoke to me about my community, government, or political work, were posting the weirdest shit online every day, even as they continued to get two reactions, one of them being their own.
They would start a fight on your page. If you responded, their subservient wives would come to their aide, backing up whatever dumb-shit opinion their man used to gaslight them in the suburban home they never left aside from getting groceries and going on playdates. They would wait for your responses so they could spew more fallacies so delusional that you didn't even know where to start. And if you didn't respond, they would claim they "got you!" and won?
During that 2016 school district election, I couldn't keep up with the misinformation and the most vocal voices filled with disdain and hateful messages. And the day after the 2016 Election, even more people came out of the woodwork, rubbing it in the faces of Hillary supporters.
From Bernie Bros to MAGA Trumpers, the message was: "Yeah, let's stick it to those she-woman-man-haters and the gays and blacks. They've really been getting on our nerves lately. Blue Lives Matter! Not All Men! Let's Go Brandon!
And suddenly, Joe Rogan was a god, and men started pretending to care about fetuses while claiming our vaginas were the same as our pee holes.
Every time I came close to mentioning Hillary, reproductive health, or women in leadership, there was a misogynistic asshole ready to fuck with me and start a fight. And they often pulled me and so many others right into their trap.
They wanted to keep calling people pussies and using gay as a pejorative. They wanted to be able to enter a room, puff out their chests, and tell you to get them coffee and make them a meatloaf. They said, "This Trump guy, he's famous! He's made money and doesn't give a fuuuuuuck! So, FUCK you, loser bitch."
Or there was the, "You should have known Hillary didn't have a chance. She's too elite. If Bernie was the nominee, we would have won. I told you all about this in my 1000-word Facebook essay referencing JFK. Didn't you read it?!"
No, but I hope you're now reading mine.
Yeah, that's what it was like.
After the 2016 Election, I tried to stay positive, even though I felt I had let down my community with the bond in April and everyone who truly believed we would have our first Woman president in January. I knew I didn't do enough for Hillary's campaign or those who shared my values. Any attempt I made to cheer on Hillary and support women seemed to inadvertently poke the bear, so I often felt like I did more harm than good.
But I let myself spend most of 2016 in a safe bubble of excitement and hope for the future, mistakenly believing we had it in the bag. I mean, people are not THAT sexist that they would vote for a likely dictator over a woman, right?
Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking, either.
By January 2017, I had all but blocked or unfriended a host of people who just wanted to terrorize me at nearly every turn. Then, I served in public office, and people could send their vitriolic messages to me via email instead. And tell me I couldn't block them on a Facebook account I've had since 2004 because I was now their public servant.
By 2024, I had slowly but surely stepped away from an elected position, and my social algorithms became emotionally healthier. I learned to "keep it light" with those who had come at me over the past few years and kept close, the people who shared my values and didn't make me curse society daily.
But by then, I knew that even if I could avoid it to protect myself, these attitudes and blatant disregard for women had always been there, and it wouldn't simply go away because the majority of the population wanted it to.
So, when everything I hoped for our future suddenly came to fruition in the days after Biden's announcement, I wanted to be happy. Seeing that Harris raised a record $81 million within 24 hours, watching all the other potential nominees endorse her immediately and wholeheartedly, and feeling intense love on all my social media feeds—from Charli XCX deeming Harris "brat" to Swifties for Kamala—all of it should have had me over the moon with excitement.
But it just feels like 2016 all over again.
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We need to address the uncomfortable fact that we live in a society built by white men who too often confuse their own point of view with the absolute truth (Simone de Beauvoir) and that this affects everything about our lives. We must manage our approach to this opportunity strategically and thoughtfully because 2016 is already starting to repeat itself.
It's eight years later, and as I watch the City of Everett communicate with voters about a levy lid lift, I'm hearing a lot of the same old tropes and misinformation. The PTSD I am having is overwhelming.
I watch and hear city staff do their darndest to give all the information, to explain complicated tax policy that none of them had a role in creating in the fucking first place, and work unpaid overtime doing their jobs on a budget that's gone through massive cuts to staff, services, and salaries nearly every year since 2015. I see the constituents this staff has been serving to the best of their ability suddenly holding their public servant's jobs over their heads.
These folks already know how they're voting, and they didn't come to the meeting to ask reasonable questions. Now that they no longer have to do this via email, social media, phone, or Zoom, they can come in person to yell their uniformed opinion about taxes at you, raise your blood pressure, and bring out your fight-or-flight instincts.
And it doesn't matter who is leading the government, although it doesn't help when it's women or a person of color, or even if you bring your burly white male fire AND police chief to vouch for you, they want to be right, which means you are wrong.
It doesn't matter what new information you give them that corrects their statement. It doesn't matter what you say in a presentation, how many slides or documents you show explaining it to them, how much work you've done, or how many successes you show them; they are against you. And if you're not careful, something you say or share might be strangely flipped around on you. You have to be perfect; even when you are, it won't be enough. You spend a public information meeting like you're in a debate with Donald Trump, where he's throwing 15 blatant lies and proclaiming things that are outright untrue and unhinged.
This behavior has always existed, and since 2016, it has only become more irrational, complicated, and deranged, thanks to, well, the male bias. And even if we manage to avoid it, it's there.
The "Reject Prop 1" campaign for this levy is funded by Arthur Skotdal and the businesses and people he's connected to.
And at this point, you're probably wondering where the fuck I'm going with all this, but I promise, it's all connected.
Just seven $1k to $5k donations from Skotdal and his wealthiest friends and businesses have raised $20,000 to help bankrupt our city and cause drastic cuts to our parks, public safety, libraries, and animal shelters.
They are not only stopping the city from carrying out the essential services it has been able to maintain throughout the years, but they are also forcing the city to make further cuts to balance the budget, resulting in everyone receiving even fewer services. All being done to secure a 2025 mayoral win for his other wealthy friend, Scott Murphy, who now has a shot at winning because a female leader had the sex some men disapproved of.
Murphy is a recently failed candidate who makes nearly $1 million yearly, not including his family trust. Although he will face the same budget deficit and either be forced to go to voters for a levy in the future or cut even more services, it doesn't matter if he wins. And winning for him means first burning our city to the ground.
And why would they care? Arthur Skotdal, Scott Murphy, and the wealthiest in Everett won't care that there is no 4th of July Celebration; they'll be celebrating all the "riffraff" no longer infringing on their quiet, wealthy white neighborhood for a day.
They don't care if we never have a public pool again. They go on their boats, jump in their private pools, or leave for Arizona and Palm Springs.
They won't notice the Animal Shelter is closed. They purchased their $8,000 purebred French Bulldog during COVID-19.
They don't need a library; they can afford their own books and a vast library to store them in.
How do so few people see that this is just one example of the 1% working to get even richer while using their already excessive wealth to spread even more lies to keep the poor poorer? I'm not disgusted with people's wealth, but I am disgusted by their goddamn, blatantly, unapologetic vile use of it.
And it all fucking stems from a deep disdain for any other perspective than that of a rich, old, white man and those they've managed to gaslight into buying into that perspective.
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So, as much as I want to celebrate Kamala Harris, and I'm hopeful about the possibility of a new, brighter future with our first woman president, we cannot forget that the sexist, racist, homophobic, crony-capitalist, white male opposition is still alive and well. And that this opposition doesn't give a flying fuck who they hurt in the process.
While I may no longer see and feel the visceral hate on my social media feed, it's evident everywhere else: At council meetings where Scott Murphy and his buddies have nothing better to do than backhandedly mansplain and trash a woman mayor, council members, and non-partisan staff during their three minutes at the podium. I hear it when I talk with a male friend who scoffs when I say if Biden gets out, the next best option is Harris. I notice it when I'm at a neighborhood meeting, and the chair tells our male police chief to present first so he can be home with his wife while making a woman council member with two young kids wait until the end of the two-and-a-half-hour meeting to present.
I see it in an elected "Democratic" County Council Member's comments bemoaning Biden dropping out, saying, "We can do better, and we must do better." Just a round-about way of saying "Fuck off" to Harris and women everywhere while appealing to a white-male MAGA base.
The New York Times and other news publications also tell me what's happening: "Kamala Harris's run for president is getting ugly," "Donald Trump Accuses' Radical Left' Kamala Harris of Antisemitism," and "Racist and sexist take on Kamala Harris are in full swing."
In a New York Times Opinion from David Brooks titled, "Making Peace with the Kamala Harris Nomination, he wrote, "Some moments, I share the jolt of enthusiasm many are feeling. Other moments, I think the Democrats are suffering from a mass hypnotic delusion, nominating a seriously flawed candidate."
Um, I'm sorry. Does it matter that Biden, Buttigieg, Shapiro, Newsom, and all those other fucks are also flawed and perhaps have even more skeletons in their closet? What the fuck are you looking for?! Oh yeah, your white male savior.
And now a portion of "that radical left" is going after Harris about her stance on Israel and Palestine, and while I wholeheartedly agree that the United States should not be participating in a genocide of any people, here's a big "fuck off" to anyone using her or any other woman's stance who is running in 2024, while having been complicit in supporting and helping hundreds of male elected officials who contributed to the problem over that last five decades.
And don't tell me I support the genocide of Palestinians or that I am antisemitic. All the fucking strength I can muster right now is keeping our small business afloat so my family doesn't become destitute and stopping Project 2025 so we can, God willing, get to a point where we can make a difference abroad.
Let's not be blind to what the massively wealthy 1% is doing to do to our communities, state, and country. They want to keep things as is because that helps them stay in power. It keeps their bank accounts full and growing. It gives them more power to influence. They make your ability to live harder while continuing to use their consolidation of wealth to gaslight and pretend to give a fuck about the 99% of people not doing okay – and those who stand to lose even more than they already have.
Kamala Harris's Presidential run is surely making politics fun again! But, while we're rallying around her and giddy about the real chance of seeing the first Black Female United States Supreme Court Justice swear in the first Female and Black president on Martin Luther King Day in 2025, let's not forget there are 99 days until November 5.
Ninety-nine days for us to repeat history.
And there are only 10 days until a critical August primary that will dictate your November ballot and the future of our local communities and states.
The backlash is coming in hot. It won't go away. It's not going to feel good, and we could very well fuck it up if we're not on high alert and don't keep our eye on the ball.
So, excuse me if I'm not as hyped and brat on social media as I should be. Kamala Harris's candidacy is not just a coconut meme, a reel set over a Taylor Swift song, or a TikTok about Kamala owning Trump at a future debate. It's not just buying a shirt saying, "Hotties for Harris" or "Kamala La La La La La La," and it's not just finding comfort in one of the 20 different Facebook groups I've been asked to join over the past few weeks.
When the comments about Harris are positive, they are mostly related to her physical and vocal presence, grace under pressure, passion, authenticity, and presence. This is all well and good, but it fails to recognize her experience as a power-house prosecutor, former attorney general of California, a United States Senator, and current United States Vice President who didn't ride in on her family's coattails. She attended a Historically Black College and was an Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority member. In my humble opinion, the sorority house is the quintessential political experience.
And God, I hope what we seem to be doing works and that we can sustain the excitement and motivation. Because the mansplaining trolls are there waiting, ready to pounce if Harris, you, or I do anything they deem unworthy or flawed.
This election year is about so much more than making politics fun again. It's EVERYTHING for women and everyone who calls this country home, even for those who don't get it yet.
I'm worried we'll fuck this up. And we cannot let our history of white-male supremacy fuck it up for us. In the end, it will all be on Harris's shoulders, and these same asshole antagonists will be sure we don't forget that.
So, here's my suggestions for the individual:
Seriously, ignore the haters. Don't feed into them. Don't give them fodder. If you can't ignore their comment, delete their fucking posts from your page. Don't comment on their posts. Don't give them a single reaction. The more we emphasize and respond to their negative behavior, the more airtime their stupidity gets and the more undeserved power they receive.
These losers, who have lost nearly all their friends since 2016 because they feel the need to post trash every day and harass people, don't deserve to capitalize on the thousands of followers and friends you've built over time with your feminism, positivity, and hope.
We all have 24 hours a day, families to care for, work we get paid for and lives to live. It's okay to be on social media and share inspiring reels and TikToks, but always keep 2016 in mind when you do.
Don't be like me the year I believed it was in the bag.
Spend your time talking to those who stand to lose the most from Project 2025 and anything that doesn't lead to a Harris Presidency. Talk to those who are less engaged in politics. Frankly, I've found it way more effective to chat with my aesthetician and the folks at the small-women-owned businesses I frequent than respond to douchebags on the internet or during meetings.
Feel free to take your leave from people and spaces that waste your time because they don't deserve what you bring to the table. Direct your efforts where it matters – toward the women and other individuals who need this win.
Read articles with a grain of salt because even the most well-intentioned reporter could destroy years of hard work.
Do the canvassing and doorbelling and join the talking-point sessions with local groups so you know what language and tactics are tested and proven effective.
Be the light you wish the world to be, and recognize that the world was, in fact, shaped by the male perspective, and your own country has been formed and run by it for the last 248 years. There's a lot of work ahead to find the beginning of a new and better age in our history.
On November 9, 2016, I posted:
Wake up. Make coffee. Fight hate. Repeat.
How we fight today might need to look different than it did in 2016, but I think, just maybe, we can do this and start to change our current trajectory.
Don't let up, don't give in to the traps, and don't get caught up in your frustrations because you'll experience many of them.
Focus on the people you can move, and all the others will have to come around, eventually.
Resources:
Property Taxes, Primaries, Presidents, and Poking the B
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