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In reply to the discussion: I'm going to say it [View all]Hekate
(90,565 posts)...I never see again. One had been a long time colleague in local social justice and peace work, the other is a very narrow hyper-intellectual who only knows mathematics. Both these women are about my age, which is 70, and well old enough to know better.
The last -- the very last time -- I had lunch with my old colleague, a bright Latina with heart, she parroted the anti-Hillary screeds from the Left. "Hillary Rodham" is more dangerous than Trump because she knows where the levers of power are, and that kind of crap. What made it worse was I know which group of vets she was spending all her time working with, because during the Bush2 years I worked with them too.
The other woman I have only encountered a handful of times and she has always irritated me, but the last time was right after the Comey "revelations." She went out of her way to needle me hard about Hillary's supposed criminality. Talk of Trump's character left her unmoved. "We'll see," she said. "We'll see what the next week brings."
How could they? How could one I thought I knew be so blind? How could the other one be that arrogant? And here's the final kick in the ass: they are both financially marginal.
Last week I phoned an old friend from graduate school and spent an hour talking her down from her anxiety about the fascist, trying to give her some hope. She's poor and lives in senior housing, with a son dying in a nursing home far away in Wisconson. Trump is a disaster for such as they -- this is reality. She's like me, she voted for Hillary, absolutely no question about it.
A few days later I phoned my sister and it was even worse. She's Dem to the bone, like me. I felt like I was trying to talk someone down off a ledge for over an hour. I did my best. She's in upstate New York and I am in California. I can't just drop in. Aside from the galloping fascism, Trump's destruction of the ACA is impacting her husband, herself, and their virtually disabled adult son that she brought home to live with them -- this is real. She wants to leave the country, but can't.
Then for me, something more about the children -- maybe it was Senator Elizabeth Warren's write-up of her visit to the cages -- My eyes leaked all day. Again, insomnia.
Damn, now I seem to be dribbling tears on my iPad. Sorry if it makes the ink run. Sorry if I said too much.