“I want her, too, but she will never get the nomination.”
“She’s not electable.”
“I don’t think this country is ready for a woman president.”
I could go on, but I’m certain I don’t have to. I’m certain many of you have either heard and/or uttered similar phrases.
This is absurd.
This is us staying small and playing within the confines of the system that was set up without us and not for us.
This is how we give away our power and agency.
Can we stop?
Please?
It is not only a lack of imagination that leads us to this place, but it is also fear. Which makes it understandable and also incredibly difficult to break free from.
Many of us have spent years minding the levies.
Many of us have been groomed to hold fast, take baby steps, think about the ones who are coming behind us.
But it is important to recognize that the levies are man-made. They weren’t created to keep us safe, but to keep us small, to keep us compliant, to make us believe that venturing beyond the boundaries will surely destroy us.
The overwhelm is real.
Once we begin to think about what might be possible if we look up and out, peer over the walls we’ve been told are impenetrable, or at least can’t be breached right now, we can be flooded with confusion, and we are much more susceptible to the cries of
“Not yet!”
“Be realistic!”
“You’re going to ruin it for all of us!”
It is true that change can be made one tiny step at a time. We have seen it happen with everything from women’s suffrage to same-sex marriage.
But how many years did we wait for the ERA to be ratified?
And what happened in the interim?
How many women’s voices and talents were hidden and squashed?
We are at a tipping point, and we’ve gotten here with baby steps – this adherence to Capitalism at all costs, Individuality above all else – it has gotten us a health care system that is quite literally killing people. It has gotten us an overwhelming population of people living in cars and tents and sleeping on the street. It has forsaken education and locked up children and made a world where people who aren’t white, non-disabled, cis-gendered, heterosexual, English-speaking, non-mentally ill have to work harder and harder to simply stay alive.
The old saw about whether the glass is half full or half empty? That’s us keeping ourselves small. That is Capitalism and patriarchy giving us the parameters within which we are allowed to live. That is the way we are told what our reality should be.
But the truth is, we don’t have to just have one glass.
And it doesn’t have to be filled with water.
We can cup our hands and drink from an ever-flowing stream.
We can fill a mug with tea.
We can squeeze juice from an orange in to one glass and sip it alongside a mug of coffee.
During this presidential primary, maybe it would work for you to set aside what you’ve been told by fear or the media or your trusted Uncle Joe.
Maybe gathering the courage to vote for the woman who shows up to listen, who has proven herself capable of learning and growth, who comes with a plan and a history of getting shit done is a way for you to stand tall and peek over the levy to imagine what might be possible if we do this in a big way.
Maybe marking the circle next to Elizabeth Warren’s name would feel like you’ve just entered a bigger room where there is more air to breathe.
It could be that that simple act of courage, taken by all of you who say she is your preferred candidate, is a powerful counteraction to the shrinking, the resignation, the acceptance of the boundaries we’ve been told are unbreachable.
And if there are enough of us who are willing to vote with hope and agency and clarity of purpose, we can begin to untangle ourselves from the Gordian Knot we’ve been told we have to live with. Join me?
