Today, I changed my FB profile pic to a handmaid. An acquaintance accused me of “fear mongering.”
Fear mongering is when you’re using fear to manipulate people, often by exaggerating or completely making up a threat.
Some recent political examples include Trump saying legal Haitian migrants are eating people’s pets and claiming that Democrats are aborting babies after they’re born.
I’m in shambles today. Crying gives me a terrible headache, and course I’ve been crying, so I’m in more physical pain than usual, and I’m anxious and depressed, and I don’t know how I’m going to get through today, much less tomorrow.
I’m an Atwood scholar, so it felt right to put up my little handmaid, both as a symbol of the weight of fear I have and as a symbol of resistance.
I don’t think that Trump being elected = Gilead in all its forms, and that’s not what a handmaid avatar means to me.
However, I reject the claim of fear mongering because I’m not making up fears to manipulate anyone. I’m expressing the very real fears that I have, because of what Trump has said and because of what Project 2025 states. (Note that some Trump fans are exclaiming today that (d’uh) Project 2025 is the new regime’s plan).
On this day eight years ago, people told me to relax, that it wasn’t going to be that bad. It was worse, so I am afraid.
Trump disbanded the Pandemic team before Covid, and he says he’ll kill it again on his first day in office, so I am afraid.
When Covid happened, Trump knew it was serious; he told Woodward so, but he lied to the rest of us, so I am afraid.
Trump could have pulled the country together during Covid, but instead he claimed it was a Democrat hoax, using a deadly virus to score political points, so I am afraid.
Trump’s lies killed people, so I am afraid.
Trump constantly insults the military, especially those wounded or shot down (like my Daddy), so I am afraid.
Project 2024 would take resources from disabled veterans like my husband, so I am afraid.
I am a top scholar in my field & an award-winning teacher, but the only reason I still have my job, when UCD would love to replace me with a cheap grad student, is my union. Project 2025 will undermine unions, so I am afraid.
Speaking of unions, I couldn’t get healthcare due to pre-existing conditions, until I moved to California for a union job. Repealing the ACA would allow insurance to deny coverage for people like me once again, so I am afraid.
My child is nonbinary, so I am afraid. Many of my students and loved ones are LGBTQA+, so I am afraid.
Many of my students are DACA, so I am afraid.
Project 2025 says the only real families are those with stay at home mommies, so I am afraid.
Climate change is real and deadly, so I am afraid.
Elected Republicans, unlike the majority of Americans (including unelected Republicans), resist any common sense changes to gun laws. I teach at a university, where any disgruntled white boy could open fire at any time, so I am afraid.
US agencies agree that White Supremacist Terrorism is the greatest terrorist threat. White supremacists love Trump, and he loves them back, so I am afraid.
Trump, hereinafter referred to as Ofputin, will definitely help Russia conquer Ukraine and whatever other countries he’s after, so I am afraid.
Ofputin gave Putin classified information, Covid testing supplies, etc. At one point after the former, our undercover agents started being killed, so I am afraid.
What Ofputin says is just not how tariffs work, so I am afraid.
The economists say Ofputin will wreck the economy, so I am afraid.
Project 2025 would continue to attack public education and our ability to teach facts instead of right-wing propaganda, so I am afraid.
I was once in an emotionally abusive marriage; I prayed that God would kill me to free me from it. Thankfully, after deciding divorce was holier than my child being raised without me, no fault divorce meant I could leave. Project 2025 will make it harder for women like me, so I am afraid.
Many of my loved ones and students are at risk of an unintended pregnancy. Not being able to access abortion services leads to more poverty, more domestic violence, more infanticide, more mental and physical illness, and more women’s murders. In fact, the number one way that pregnant women die in this country is by the hands of the man who impregnated them, so I am afraid.
Many of my loved ones and students need birth control. The Supreme Court and Project 2025 are coming after it (and gay marriage), not to mention comprehensive sex ed. These things are what actually get abortion numbers down, and I am afraid.
Many of my loved ones and students will have problems with their wanted pregnancies. The legacy of the last administration and its policies are already letting women bleed out, so I am afraid.
Project 2025 wants more religious freedom laws, and many current states have them. When I visit my family this December in Florida, for example, if I need critical care, an ER doctor could literally refuse to help me if he or she thought I was a sinner, which I obviously am, as we all are, so I am afraid.
I know many people who didn’t vote for Harris because she isn’t anti-Israel enough for them, but the President-elect won’t advocate for a two country solution, won’t try to stop the disproportional retaliation against Gaza, and has a chief sycophant who argues that ALL Palestinians, from toddler age, are terrorists, so I am afraid.
I want a functional Department of Education, Department of Energy (it oversees our nuclear weapons, FFS), FDA, IRS, HHS, etc, but Republicans don’t want any of these things (and I’m not going to list all the sources below cause there are too many), and I am afraid.
I don’t want RFK Jr in charge of anything, much less “everything,” so I am afraid.
Ofputin thought he could nuke hurricanes, so I am afraid.
Ofputin wanted to shoot BLM protestors, so I am afraid.
The Supreme Court heard arguments that Ofputin could kill a political opponent and not be in any legal trouble and they sided with that argument, so I am afraid.
Ofputin bragged about grabbing women by the pussy and then slandered a woman who said he grabbed her by the pussy, but was found liable for grabbing her by the pussy, and now his supporters wear shirts encouraging him to grab them by the pussy, and his main defense against rape allegations is that the women who accuse him aren’t hot enough to be “the chosen one[s]”–you know, chosen for him to rape, but he also thought a picture of E. Jean Carroll was of his wife, and he’s bragged about being able to see naked teenagers at pageants, and even if I hadn’t been a naked teenager at a pageant once, I would think that was gross, and Epstein said he was Ofputin’s best friend, but also that Ofputin, again: in Epstein’s opinion, was a bad person, and again, I’m not going to source all of this, but you know how to use Google, and I am afraid.
I could keep writing, and I am afraid.
But I’ll end with this.
On January 6th, 2021, I was trying to work–to distract myself from the political coup unfolding on my screen. My work that day, though, was editing an essay for Margaret Atwood Studies on the coup pulled off by the Sons of Jacob in The Handmaid’s Tale. As I was editing an essay on a right-wing, white supremacist coup of the U.S., there was a right-wing, white supremacist attempted coup in the U.S.
Now, how can I think of Ofputin and the existential threat he represents to this nation (a threat verified by those who served under him last time) without thinking of The Handmaid’s Tale?
If fears are real, it’s not fear mongering.
Sources:
Ofputin & classified info; Ofputin & covid testing; Ofputin and American agents
Ofputin ok to kill political rivals
