Unrealized Fear

*This story explores the angst arising from political and social issues created in our current political climate.*

“Let’s take another question from the audience. Yes, the young woman at the third microphone. Which candidate do you want to address?”

“This question is for either. Hopefully, both will answer.”

“That’s fine. That’s fine. Please go ahead.”

“I would like to ask if either of you will stop using our plights as tools to get elected?” 

The bright white smile of the interchangeable news anchor fades. A hair comes out of place from sweat and fear. “Um… ha… ha… that’s funny. I don’t think that gives enough context to…”

“Let me clarify. I was scared as a child. I didn’t come from a great home. My parent’s struggled with the bills, they worked more than they should, and I scrimped and saved every penny so I could to help out. For Christmas, I asked for eggs and sugar so I could bake. On my birthday, I asked for the dresses and shoes I needed for school. My parents spoiled me. Bought me gifts on credit that they are still paying off today. They didn’t realize the real gift would be a night free from their fights about budgets they thought I didn’t hear. It never occurred to them that I wanted their time more than any material good.”

“I feared money at home and every day I went to school worried about my safety. Weekly, sometimes daily, I heard about the tragedies at other schools. I watched my classmates with a judgmental and strategic eye. Every person I saw sitting alone, in a hoodie, or having a bad day, I turned into a suspect. I kept an eye out in each class for an escape route or where the best place to hide was. I tried to reach out to my suspects, but that backfired, because you can’t force friendship. Sometimes I made friends, other times enemies, but most of the time I looked like a preppy girl who wanted to appear helpful as opposed to helping. I was biased in privilege and ignorance.”

“The nightly news was a ritual for my dad and I. Every night we watched it together and had spirited discussions on the things we agreed and disagreed. My father tried to keep his political bias out of our discussion, but in retrospect he didn’t, and I was too young to understand. At eleven I knew two things. I didn’t understand the issues’ nuances and my elected leaders were working towards a solution.”

“I grew up thinking school would be my obituary, homelessness our destiny. As more time passed, I feared issues were too big to solve, too much to tackle, and still thought that our elected leaders were trying their best. Each side had an absolute solution, but was too set to listen to the other. I was frustrated when Democrats didn’t acquiesce to Republicans. When power shifted, I cursed Republicans for not supporting Democrats. Whoever won the election dictated policy. That was what the news media and my politicians taught me. Nothing happened, so I lived in fear of the unknown around the corner.”

“In retrospect, I was insecure. My fear derived from a perceived lack of safety and security everywhere I went. Our finances were in despair, schools were war zones, and this insecurity drove me to a dual major in journalism and psychology. I dreamed of being a war reporter until I saw, firsthand, the horrors of our tax dollars at work. I went for a masters in psychology that let me work with our veterans while pursuing a PHD where my dissertation centered on the psychology of policy and its relationship to political discourse. I saw the horrors of war with my eyes, I listened to our vets, and then I became an expert in what enacted policy looked like compared to political rhetoric.”

“Scars of my childhood drove me to self fund my education. Words like debt and credit were as bad as curses. I pulled myself up from my bootstraps, became an expert, and discovered my eleven-year-old self was wrong.”

“Immigration, the economy, housing, health insurance, education, prison reform, police reform, clean air, water, and even safe food were slogans and not the problems that undercut our lived reality. I’m older for a mom, or should I say want to be a mom, but I’m terrified of getting pregnant. If something goes wrong, I’m more likely to get care in a Warzone than this state. Tens of thousands of my fellow Americans dying annually is somehow viewed as a price to entry and not a systemic flaw.”

“The system of crony capitalism hasn’t served the voting public for close to a half century. Maybe it has been longer, but in the past four the secrets have been laid bare. We have money to subsidize the rich and the wealthy, to buy weapons, and supplement the salaries they refuse to raise. That money runs dry for healthcare, education, or making our communities safe.”

“The things both of you campaign on are our lived reality. In a political system designed to glacially respond to problems we crave proactive leaders who solve them before we drown in the consequences of inaction. Every hour a constituent spends fighting an insurance company to cover their medical bills or a claim, sows hours of distrust and dissent to our system of governance.” 

“You can have your victory parties on election night, only if you remember that you just made the team and the hard work has just begun. I don’t expect you to know everything, but I expect you to find the people who have put in the work and become experts in their field backed by empirical, provable data, and not your opinion or whim.”

“I’m the expert in what you claim to do. I know the ins and outs of your words, the couched meanings, and what action can be taken. I expect you to be better than a tantrum throwing child, but due to my expertise, I know better. Instead of putting you in time out, it’s more likely we will reelect you.”

“Right now there is an eleven-year-old watching this, a little girl who hopefully doesn’t understand the intricacies of what you do, but does understand that it’s important. I wish I could tell that girl to have hope and that it will all be okay, but I know better. I studied it.”

“I’m as insecure now as I ever was. Not because I have neuroses or haven’t gotten help. Not because of what I saw in the horrors of war, but because I know now what I didn’t know then. You don’t serve us, but serve yourselves. You forgot that your electorate are your peers, not your children.”

“To be honest, I don’t expect an answer from either of you. If you give one, know I am uniquely qualified to call you on your bullshit. No, instead I implore you to have humility to admit where you are ignorant and admit that you have done wrong. I encourage you not to give us a grand vision of the future, but steps backed by study and evidence that will make our lives better. I ask you to take lessons from the great leaders of the past and cast away the game our politics has become. I encourage you to move forward and not engage in another generation of stubborn political gridlock. I pray you don’t become one of the many suffering from a lesson not learned.”