Deliver us from evil.

It’s the day before potential apocolypse. And I don’t even believe in the apocolypse.

Driving around our uber-affluent suburbs this past weekend I saw a lot of “Trump/Pence” signs in yards of this fire-engine red state. And I woke up to something that had been staring me in the face for months.

I am surrounded by people who, quite literally, frighten me.

I know that sounds like hyperbole of the type that has made 2016’s election cycle a total shit show. But it’s absolutely true.

Each time I see a Trump campaign sign, I know that the people living in the house are comfortable with hate speech. They don’t mind breaking up families by deporting masses of immigrants. They can overlook the fact that the man mocks disabled people and Gold Star parents.  It’s okay with them that his business practices range from suspect to fraudulent. They don’t mind that their choice for president doesn’t know or care about the constitution  or the continuation of our democracy.

Any one of those facts is disgusting in its own right. But what is most horrifying is that they don’t care that their candidate regularly dismisses and denigrates women; that he boasts of having assaulted women. They don’t care that my daughters, their daughters and granddaughters, are clearly receiving the message from them and from their candidate that females are not intelligent, capable, important, or anything other than objects for lust.

Every time I drive by one of those signs I hear again every sexist comment that’s ever been thrown at me. I remember every time a man has – without thinking twice – dismissed me as “cute” or “sweet.” I’m brought back to the time I was grabbed and kissed – unwillingly – in the hall of my junior high; the times I’ve felt unsafe walking past groups of catcalling men.

Every time I pass a Trump sign I imagine the trauma those signs trigger in women who have been groped, assaulted, raped.

The people with Trump signs in their yards are declaring to the world that all this evil is fine with them. That’s the bottom line, no matter what they’re telling themselves and others about why they support him.

Anyone who can support Donald Trump is a threat to decent society, a threat to me and my daughters, and a threat to all women.

And that scares the crap out of me. Because they’re everywhere.

If the American people rise up together tomorrow to defeat this representative of evil, we may have a chance of beating back the tide of hatred and sexism in our neighbors.

Help us, voters. You’re our only hope.

 

 

 

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