Surviving Shame
Disclaimer: This post will discuss my mental health challenges, so reader discretion is advised.
I don’t know why I feel ashamed all of a sudden. Actually, I do know why - it’s because of that orange dipshit who just won the presidential election last week. Some would say that I’m not my country, that it’s not my fault he’s in charge. After all, I voted for Kamala Harris in large part because I didn’t want Trump to be President again and make a mockery of this country. Based on that, why should I feel any shame at all to be American?
Part of it is because I’m terminally online. The other day I was on the Pics subreddit, and a picture of the Royal Flying Doctor service in Australia (which I have shared below) was posted and labeled as “universal health care, costing the patient nothing no matter who they are.” Which it is, of course - just about every country other than America has universal health care. You could say that about a lot of other things too. We are the only country without many good things, and conversely, the only country with many bad things. But again, I didn’t choose to be born here, so why do I feel like it’s a moral failing of myself to live in the United States?
Universal health care in the Australian Outback, courtesy of the country’s Royal Flying Doctor Service. Taken from r/Pics.
Possibly it’s because I have OCD. And by “OCD”, I don’t mean “I’m so OCD because I need to have everything neat and tidy”. I mean more like, “I wash my hands so often that they often bleed during the colder months”. It’s not as bad as it was some years ago; my knuckles are not nearly as dry and cracked. However, it’s entirely possible that whenever Trump says or does something insane, it’s a compulsion that forces me to yell about how much I hate my country. It’s the reason why next time I go to Europe, I might take a Canadian flag pin with me and put it on my bag so people know I don’t approve. I know that realistically, most people in Italy aren’t going to judge me for my nationality unless I tell them I voted for Trump (which I won’t, because I didn’t), but I can’t cope with being a laughingstock. I just can’t.
Recently I was on a Discord server and had a discussion about how I couldn’t get over what other people thought of me. Somebody asked me if I was on the autism spectrum, and I said yes, because I am. In many ways it means I’m weird and wonderful, but sometimes the weird part wins out. It certainly has lately, and it probably will a lot over the next four years. Maybe that’s another part of the reason I give so much thought to what others think of me for something I didn’t choose. I voted against Trump - that’s the most potent legal form of protest I could have used. But he’s still going to represent us abroad for the next four years, and we’ll be even more of a laughing stock than we were previously. Even in my personal life, whenever someone is laughing around me, I often feel like they’re laughing at me, even if they really aren’t.
Trump asks about injecting bleach during a COVID-19 press conference on April 23, 2020.
It’s not just the fact that things are worse here than they should be, though. It’s that voters, by and large, appear to be okay with it. Consider that Donald Trump openly bragged about killing Roe v. Wade, multiple times in fact, and still won the presidency last week. This occurred even in the face of his opponent making abortion rights the center of her campaign. Even after Amber Nicole Thurman’s story was publicized, voters just didn’t care. This stands in stark contrast to the Republic of Ireland, where just one death due to lack of abortion access was seen as too many, and they immediately legalized it. And don’t even get me started on our gun laws.
Another example: As stated above, the United States doesn’t have universal health care, and even many Democratic lawmakers don’t support it. Consider that Justin Trudeau, the current Prime Minister of Canada, is considered left of center by Canadian standards. Imagine if he proposed moving to an American-style health care system. Just imagine. You probably can’t, because that would never happen.
Redditors from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, or any other civilized country you can think of will proudly tell you that even the conservatives in their country vocally support universal health care, and that any politician proposing to get rid of it would immediately be shooed out of office. That’s probably true. It’s not just that we get screwed over so much, but that we as a country mind it so little. In Canada, no party that campaigned on rolling back LGBTQ+ rights would ever be elected. Compare that to our culture war bullshit that elected Trump once again. And this time, he won the popular vote, so the Electoral College can’t be used as an excuse.
So when the world laughs at you for your country being a laughing stock, what do you do? How do you go on living when you’re the butt of so many jokes? How do you not feel as though everyone hates and mocks you?
One thing’s for sure: Don’t be like this guy.
The answer is that, at least in the case of the latter question, you don’t. You just have to keep living - you’re not going to sink through the floor and disappear like anyone who’s just been in a very embarrassing situation wants to. But at the same time, actively working to make things better isn’t going to solve my shame either. Like I said at the top, I feel responsible for whatever does or doesn’t happen now even though I voted for Harris. The fact remains that I will still have to pay taxes to the Trump administration, and I don’t trust him one bit to spend my tax dollars with any decency whatsoever.
Maybe one morning, four years, two months, and eight days from now, I will wake up and Trump will no longer be President. We’ll still be a laughing stock, of course, because in any civilized nation Trump would be lucky to get 5 percent of the vote, if he were allowed to run at all after attempting a violent coup. It’s a testament to our unique collective depravity that he got over 50. But for now, I am a dissident. I will embrace the label of dissident, because it shows that I do not approve of the administration. Even if the Trump administration starts supporting Russia instead of Ukraine, even if they “drill baby drill” in the face of every other country fully embracing renewable energy, even if they hunt down and lock up every last LGBTQ+ person in the country, I will go to the gas chamber knowing I tried to resist.
If anyone from Canada still hates me for being American, that’s on them.
