My parents were young when they had me. Not teens, but young adults. They were married and in their mid-20s, so it wasn’t remarkable, but as a couple, they weren’t prepared for the responsibilities of parenthood—especially my father. Both of them had very rough childhoods, and neither had addressed the unhealed trauma. The pressure and challenges of parenting brought out the worst in my father and they broke up.

This is the compassionate version. If I told you all about my father’s own hard childhood, you would understand that he wasn’t a monster. And when depicting the actions of Black man, I feel the need to offer that disclaimer. My dad was just a guy who was totally triggered. But without sugarcoating, I can tell you that my dad was abusive when I was a newborn. He would stand over my mom while she was nursing and berate her. He would yell and criticize and then storm out of the house. She—in her own trauma response—would freeze and stay silent as I nursed. And as near as I can recall or imagine, as a newborn, I must have been in a complete panic, my tiny nervous system completely blown out with terror.

Which is how I felt about the election for most of September and early October. Terrified.

I have written previously about how Tr*mp is an abuser, and how that’s part of what has us all so triggered right now. I am part of a peer counseling community that has been encouraging us to look at the current political situation and ask what does this trigger for me? As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been working on these feelings of panic and making sure to remember that a lot of the fear is not happening in the present. Yes, the present situation is profoundly dangerous. But a large part of my emotional response is old, unhealed trauma from my childhood. The scale is just about right. A tall father towering over a newborn is roughly the same power differential as the president and a Black female citizen. No wonder I’ve been so scared for the past four years.

Immediately when I began to work on this in peer counseling, I realized that the fear drew power from my early terror of my father’s rage. But another part was about my mother, her immobile state. I was afraid that the voters in the US would be like her. Frozen, terrified, confused. Unable to exercise the power they had.

In that moment, I decided that I would have to believe in the humanity of the people of the US. As a Black/Puerto Rican woman, this was not easy. My people do not have a track record of being well-treated by the power structure of this nation. But like a newborn in her mother’s lap, my life is in the hands of the voters in this country. All our lives are. Which is terrifying. But I believe, I choose to believe, that in this moment of crisis, of showdown, that enough people will be clear-eyed and take action to make the change we need.

For weeks now, I’ve been doing what I call my “fascism five.” I’ve made sure to have a peer counseling session every morning where I let out my fear that our country will be taken over by fascism and four more years of 45. Which would be a disaster at every level. At first, I would shake and cry with terror. But eventually, all the shaking and crying stopped. I could look squarely at our perilous situation without panicking. Then I could take a lighter approach. “No thanks,” I would say in mimicry of an old decaf coffee commercial. “My doctor says fascism makes me anxious!” Saying this, I would laugh and laugh and let out much of the tension that I had been holding in my body.

So peer counseling has been an important remedy for my election terror. But the other has simply been taking action. I have been text banking with several organizations: Resistance Labs, the Working Families Party, and recently for Joe Biden (see my previous post on fighting for a candidate who is not my fave). And it has made a HUGE difference in my anxiety. First of all, it has quelled the feeling that there’s something more I should be doing to impact the election. Nope. I’m doing it. Secondly, it puts me in zoom calls and slack channels with thousands of folks who are fighting to stop 45, to flip the senate and house, to protect our democracy, and to build progressive power in our country. I can feel myself as part of a movement. I am not expected to do anything amazing. Just click a button to send texts and respond mostly with multiple choice. If I don’t know how to respond, there are online moderators to help. I can see that I’m part of a huge wave of people fighting. And I feel more confident than ever that we can win. Sure, 45 and the GOP will use every dirty trick they have at their disposal to hold on to power, including SCOTUS. But the will of the people is rising. We are voting, we are organizing, and many of us are getting ready to strike if needed. Our movements are gaining momentum. We are building power.

The most important thing is that we don’t see ourselves as that newborn who can’t move, can’t talk, and is at the mercy of the big, scary man. We are not.

After a while, my “fascism makes me anxious!” affirmation stopped working. In that peer counseling session, another phrase bubbled up from me. This time in Spanish, my second language from when I was a toddler:

“aquí no será”

This is a line from a late 90s Ozomatli song, protesting US intervention in El Salvador. This is my new anthem. Remixed for the election:

aquí no será

el país no permitira

cuatro años mas de

esta barbaridad.

 

it will not happen here

the nation will not permit

four more years

of this barbarism.

 

I dedicate this song to everyone grieving for lost loved ones in the pandemic, to everyone brutalized at the border, to everyone made houseless by the looting of our economy. To all the people, animals, and land that will be devastated by the ecological fallout from 45s dangerous environmental policies. I dedicate this song to the terrified newborn I was. Who couldn’t understand that the world wasn’t falling apart. I just had young adult parents who hadn’t figured out their lives yet. And finally, I dedicate this song to everyone fearing the worst, everyone thinking that things can only get worse. Everyone frozen, simply watching this election unfold around them, unable to take action. To everyone thinking that it’s already too late. That we have already lost. We have not. We can turn this around. We can flip the senate, keep the house, get the white house. Win a Green New Deal. We need to hold a space of faith and hope right now. And act. Vote. Mobilize. Defend the election.

aquí no será.