Living As Friends In America

Post-debate thoughts

The day after the debate, I have so many thoughts in my head. On the one hand, I am relieved that Kamala Harris did so well—not that I didn’t think she was capable, I did and still do. It’s just Trump is so unpredictable that it was hard to imagine how it would go. And as someone remarked in comments to me after my post, they said felt the relief of someone who had experienced Trump/Biden Debate PTSD. That’s how I felt.

But I still worry, and that’s because I don’t understand why so many in our country still think Donald Trump is an okay guy. If they can think that, how will they unthink it? All we can hope is that some will now think differently about Trump, perhaps privately, and do so enough to vote for Harris. Maybe not being motivated to go to the polls could be enough, but I’m not sure.

An hour after I wrote my synopsis with drawings of the debate last night, I thought to myself: “Liza, despite all you have been saying, you wrote that piece assuming that Trump is a normal candidate. He is not, nowhere close. He is a deranged man with no grasp of reality.” That’s why I can’t understand undecided voters (to put it mildly—they piss me off now), or anyone who thinks Trump would be a good leader for our country. It’s beyond my comprehension. Trump’s example of a world leader who thinks Trump is a good guy is VICTOR ORBAN, the dictator of Hungary. He thinks immigrants are eating people’s pets, and that Harris wants to do transgender surgeries on imprisoned “illegal aliens.” He thinks Putin and Xi like him because he is strong; they “like” him because they can manipulate him. Trump has a dark view of the world, that America is falling apart, in decline, we are heading to WWIII— or rather he wants to paint the dark view in order to get votes. Actually, who knows if he really sees the world in such a dark way, all he has to do is play golf and have people cater to his every need.

It occured to me today that maybe there are two kinds of people, regardless of what their life situation is: those who think negatively about the world and other people, and those who think positively about the world and other people. Economics has nothing to do with it: either you just hate, or you have hope. People are good, or people are bad, out to get you. And that’s where I think we are with this election.

Kamala Harris said some wonderful things at the end last night about how she believes Americans want to be friends with each other. I love that, I believe it’s true. I think that’s why this last 8 years has been so stressful for many of us. We believe in the goodness of people, so how can some be so full of hate?

Yesterday, the father of an 11 year-old boy who was killed in Springfield, Ohio because of a bus accident spoke out about how Trump and Vance have been using his son’s death for political gain. The boy, Aiden Clarke, was killed when a car hit the school bus he was riding in. The driver of the car happened to be a Haitian immigrant. Trump posted on social media about this and included a photo of Aiden and the man who was driving the car; Vance double-downed and said the boy was “murdered by a Haitian immigrant.”

The boy’s death was an accident.

The boys’ father, Nathan Clarke, spoke in public yesterday, which was live streamed, and said,

“This tragedy is felt all over this community, the state and even the nation, but don’t spin this towards hate. They have spoken my son’s name and used his death for political gain.”

“They can vomit all the hate they want about illegal immigrants, the border crisis and even untrue claims that fluffy cats are being ravaged and eaten by community members.”

“They are not allowed, nor have they ever been allowed to mention Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio.”

Nathan Clarke said his son “studied different cultures and accepted everyone.” He and his wife are commited to living their lives as their son lived his short life, and shared a t-shirt at the hearing with the words "#LiveLikeAiden.

Thanks for being here, see you tomorrow.