Election Stress

I met a friend of mine for lunch today at the Midtown Global Market and I was tell him that for me election fatigue has a lot to do with the fact that my eye starts to twitch any time someone in my various social media says something about "Killary" or posts nonsense about how there's no difference between the two candidates.  

He looked a little shocked and said, "You know Trump supporters?"

I don't really *know* the people on my feed who support Trump, but I have a number of them, actually. I don't actually screen my Facebook (or Twitter) friends terribly much. If someone asks for a friend request, I usually assume that they're a reader and grant it.  Of course, I've been burned by this open door policy.  I've had my share of robots that I've had to cull.  I had one guy, recently, attempt to chat with me in a very pushy way that made me unfriend him instantly.  

But what's interesting to me about this is that another friend of mine was talking about actively trying to push outside of the bubble so that she doesn't always get the same 'message' on social media. I respect that, absolutely.  But, I find plenty of it without having to look too far. 

And they're tiring.

I let myself get drawn into an argument today with a guy who hoped that "when Kilary" is elected that she sends all the militant extremist immigrants to live in my neighborhood. I told him he didn't have to lay that curse on me, I already live it. My town is highly populated by Muslims and it's fine here among the Somali immigrants.  He should come.  The food is FANTASTIC.  And the taxes that the immigrant workers pay have been funding all sorts of amazing things.  My child is growing up as a minority of white kids in his school (no joke, only 6% of the students at Washington Technical identify as Caucasian) and his education is not at risk, in fact, Washington boasts a very high secondary education placement.  

But you can say these things over and over and the other side is immune. They've been immunized against the truth by a culture that distrusts actual facts. You can tell them that, no, those figures about how much immigrants cost taxpayers are actually from discredited sources and propagated by actual hate groups, but they don't care.  They're not swayed by your "liberal truth," as though truth can be partisan.  It's only become partisan because one side so blatantly ignores it.

And that's tiring.

I was listening to This American Life's podcast, "Will I Know Anyone At This Party?"  (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/600/will-i-know-anyone-at-this-party)The whole section about St. Cloud is fairly horrifying.  But I was really struck by the fact that apparently there's a rumor going around St. Cloud that Somali are ruining rental properties by trying to grow crops indoors.  What hit me about this is that was LITERALLY the EXACT same thing I heard about the Hmong immigrants who were moving into LaCrosse, Wisconsin, when I was growing up there. I don't really know what this fear represents. That new immigrants are hicks?  Are we meant to be snickering in our sleeves while clucking our tongues? 

And this is tiring, because I told my friends in the 70s that the Hmong were fine neighbors and that there were no more welfare cheaters among their ranks than among any others.

*sigh*

And who knows what's even going to happen tomorrow.  Is hate going to win?