King Duck

I am not politically charged. I did not sit around listening to talk of trump on radio shows and evening news. I didn’t find him interesting to hear about nor was I amused by his performances. I watched snippets of the first two debates and attempted to watch the third debate with little success. I did not jump behind Hillary because she is a woman and I believe a woman should have a chance at the presidency. I do believe the latter but that doesn't equal the former—it doesn’t follow blindly or become pro anything or anybody to get itself heard. I did vote for Hilary because I understand the reality of a two party system and the cruciality, at times, for voting for something you don’t believe in, in order to vote against something you don’t believe in more. If someone argued me on this philosophy, said voting for what I don’t believe in, no matter the cause, is voting against myself —I would submit and agree. I did think Trump was going to win. I didn't talk about it until the last day and then I said, to a few family members including my mother, a woman won’t win—not even if the competition is openly hateful and clearly irrational. They disagreed. My mother disagreed with passion, and I hoped she was right.

I saw how exited my mom was about the woman president she thought she’d have— something I never knew she so deeply wanted to see in her lifetime. She said it exactly like that —so deeply wanted. . . in her lifetime. Then she said—I just never imagined it would be possible. She isn’t someone who discusses the patriarchy or feminism or any kind of systemic issue other than agreeing that it is all a problem if someone else mentions it. I voted with my mother and father, took a selfie with my mom in front of the vote sign, she said, put it on facebook—make sure to hashtag #we’rewithher and #nastywomenvote. I did as she said even though I was surprised—Surprised she wanted me to hashtag nasty women vote, surprised she wanted me to hashtag at all. My dad and I make fun of her for her obsessiveness with technology—you’re like the kids we tell her. She tells us to leave her alone and we laugh while she types and clicks herself away from us.

We went out to dinner after the vote and a couple of trump supporters they’ve known for years came up to the table. One of them was an old Albanian immigrant who has a long grey mustache, a big belly, a thick accent and kisses all the womens hands when he sees them. Him and my dad get into political arguments all the time and somehow keep a sense of humor about it. My dad said, so you took the path of ignorance and voted for trump didn’t you? Rudy, that’s his name, started laughing and said—you know what I want? I want him to send these Muslim terrorists home and to stop letting in outsiders who want to kill us, he’s the only one who will do that. His thick accent and smile made his hate sound light, dusty even. My blood was boiling but before I had the chance to respond, my mom leaned in. She got right up next to him, like he was a little kid and her his superior, and she said in that calm but assertive voice—the one that causes her forehead to move with her lips, “Rudy you are an immigrant. You came here to build a life for yourself.” He said, yes—but the Muslim’s want us dead and I did not. My mom shook her head and told him that all religions had extremist groups and that in fact it was, and is, the Catholics and the Christians who have systemically enslaved and violently murdered in this country—if anyone should be removed on that logic it is them. She said it viscously—and then she said, her eyes squinted—you should be ashamed of yourself. Her lips stayed on the table with her words. Rudy felt her insides in-between them, put his hands up in the air and laughed before kissing his way out of her gaze.

I don’t know if my mom would have responded the way she did if it had been two men up on the podium again. Two men talking about themselves as if any of them knew anything worth arguing. For the rest of dinner my mom was on her phone and her lips were perched back on her face. When we arrived home my mom put her pajamas on quickly and went straight to the tv. I didn’t want to watch the media present the election and create anxiety for the public throughout the evening but I wanted to watch her. I watched her speak to her college friends in front of the tv—women who she’d gotten closer to again from all this. Women raised in male dominated societies, who never thought there was any other option than husband, child and male presidents. Who did most of the cooking and cleaning and parenting and whose children and husbands would never know how at 10:30pm, when the “path to Hilary” was no longer visible, I watched my mother cry when she realized that a woman wasn’t the change we were willing to make.

Transmissions Circa 2016