After the election, my “six degrees of separation” between my actual name and my pen name has been reduced. Mainly because I was going to put this on LinkedIn, but there’s a word limit, so I’ll share the link over there.

Anyway, onto the essay.

It’s the week (Or longer? I am losing track of time) after the election. I love Vermont, I even met Bernie Sanders when I was organizing to bring a delegation of Indigenous women from Chiapas to caucus with the governor, and to give a performance about their lived experience “on the ground” in Mexico. I went to an activist-orientated college in Vermont, which was amazing and changed my life in so many different ways (and which, sadly, recently announced it was closing its doors for good).

So I am astounded by the finger-pointing and attacks and callouts creating shockwaves through the digiverse and through the Democratic Party. My response is not a ( yay or nay) debate over those points Sanders and others are bringing up. It’s that we are barely out of the election loss and we as Democrats/Progressives/leftist liberals etc. etc. are already turning on each other.

We cannot even show a public-facing solidarity within our own blue-green ranks. This is perhaps why the far-right Republicans have succeeded, and why world powers across the globe are coming out in support of these alarming whackadoodle candidates who appear to eschew all reason alongside science and knowledge and cultural/social awareness and sensitivity. Personally, I am of the staunch opinion that Trump displays all the signs of a personality with narcissist sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies and has successfully employed that morally questionable and unethical “charm” to fool the masses of people that supported him. It is difficult to break the sway and the dominance of someone with those tendencies once they have put their manipulative game into play. Especially if they’ve successfully captured the attention (and held it) they were after on both a national and an international stage by way of a variety of tried-and-true psychologically manipulative tools and practices.

In response, this should be a time for all of us who did not vote for Trump, and those who do not support this far-right agenda full of hate and discrimination and intolerance, to come together and continue the good fight. And we are failing to do that with this huge backlash and blame gaming and all sorts of other ridiculousness, and that is how a party that is now predominantly unified by hate and intolerance and exclusion gained control of the United States, with a president-elect at the helm that is aiming to build a tyrannical regime here in this country. After all, Trump had the most to lose if he wasn’t reelected, with all the criminal charges and court cases against him.

I am astounded and sickened at the wave of Kamala-Harris-bashing that is occurring. The far-right Republicans must be over there laughing their red elephant tushies off as we do all their work for them in weakening the Blue camp even further. I can see all the white-male cronies now giving each other high fives over their whiskies and cigars at the good-ole-boys club.

In short, I say this to my fellow Democrat, leftist liberal, progressives, etc.: What in all the blazes were you all thinking?!?!? So much for striving to preserve reason, equanimity, tolerance—all as a means to operate from a place of intellect as well as heart. You not only have zero compassion, but absolutely no common sense or even awareness on how bad this looks in the eyes of both the nation and the world. Instead of coming out in support of Kamala Harris even after the election loss, you all could hardly wait to turn on her. I am ashamed of all of you. How are these Kamala-Harris detractors among the Democrats and Progressives and what-nots any different than the far-right Republicans, as exemplified by them in acting in ways and words that just create more divisiveness in the ranks?  Yes, this is a democracy and everyone is entitled to their voice and their opinion, but to come out immediately and take a page straight from the Republican page book? That does not inspire any confidence in the Democratic Party, and will have huge repercussions to come, retroactively speaking, in the next election. (If there even will be one, if the Trump-led far-right regime has its way.)

You all have no idea the damage you have just done; instead of coming together, assessing, regrouping, and planning not only strategies to adopt during the next four years, but for the next election, you have ganged up on the 2024 Democratic candidate with all the force and fury of a far-right politician. You have more effectively planted negative seeds about the Democratic Party that now have four years to grow as nourished by the far-right Republicans. In short, again, you all have contributed to the Republican publicity “smear tactics” machine. I am so appalled and horrified. Again, what the f**k were you thinking? How can we be a party that advocates for reason, science, and common sense when people like Bernie Sanders publicly and visibly throwing wordy temper tantrums to prove how smarter they are than everybody else—a spin on the “smartest guy in the room” epidemic? So now Kamala Harris has to cope with hate and threats thrown at her from the now-facist far-right regime, but hate from within by way of prominent spokepersons from her own Blue/Progressive camps? (Goodness gracious…)

If I didn’t struggle with dyscalculia, I would have the numbers that I’m pretty sure would add up in favor of Kamala Harris; namely, the votes that Bernie Sanders collected during his bid for the presidency when compared to Kamala Harris.

To wrap up, Kamala Harris was incredibly brave to take on the likes of Trump and his hatemongering followers. I applaud her efforts in the 2024 presidential election; that she persevered even with an incredibly short time period to campaign leading up the election. It is impossible to say, especially, again, as someone with dyscalculia, but I believe the number of votes and the turnout she got at the polls was remarkable, and, most likely, more than what Joe Biden might have garnered. At the time of writing this, I haven’t seen anything that proclaims “Kamala Harris definitely gave Trump a run for his money”—well, if the money Trump had was actually subject to taxes and such. I think the election results were inevitable as much as I was hoping and believing otherwise. Kamala Harris personified hope that things could be different, and if we let that hope die out by petty bickering and backstabbing (and front-stabbing) then Trump has really and truly “won”*. I think Kamala Harris was the Democratic Party’s best bet for winning the election, and people, hopefully, will remember that, and that she would have been a candidate more suitable for the presidential office, when it comes time to vote at the polls after Trump completes his selfish and self-aggrandizing agenda of making a wreck of both the Oval Office and the nation. I have hopes they will remember Kamala Harris and her strength and dignity throughout this whole process when it comes time to vote.

But now I fear that the Democratic Party just shot itself in the foot, and, perhaps, even put the last nail in the Progressive coffin of the United States. I watched with even more disbelief than I watched Yahoo News’ live update map turn almost predominantly red when people speedily “came out of the woodwork” and condemn her as part of their “what went wrong” witch hunt where all these white men (and others) were only too happy to dump all sorts of recrimination and blame on a “woman” in the aftermath. (Same story, different historical era of infamy, right?) I say to you, in conclusion, you want to blame someone, look in the mirror and take accountability for your own patriarchy-based system you continue to aggrandize.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some packing to do, and a new sign to print out and post: “[Insert More-Tolerant-Than-The-U.S. Country Name here] Or Bust!”

*Trump has not won over those who believe in science, in justice, and in protecting the environment. Furthermore, he cannot “win” over the climate change emergency, no matter how much untaxed money he has.