Last Minute Thoughts On The Election

How I voted. And why.

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

Some very last minute ramblings before the votes are in. Now I’m turning on CNN.

I’ll just say it. As a woman, I am offended by the candidacy of Kamala Harris. The idea that the first female president of the United States would be a person who was effectively cast in the role, whose chief qualifications are that she checked certain identity boxes and who, as far as we’ve seen, cannot speak in any meaningful detail about her policy positions, doesn’t just inflame me. It breaks my heart. 

Back let’s back up a little. On election day eight years ago, I arrived at my polling station before dawn, anticipating long lines. It turned out there were only a smattering of people there, mostly men on their way to construction site jobs and a few elderly people who were probably accustomed to waking up early anyway. As we funneled through the doors, I was tied for first-in-line with another voter, who stepped back and gestured for me to go before him. There seemed to be some tacit consensus that since we were about to elect our first woman president, a woman should cast the first vote.