Taking a stand

It’s funny because I’ve become so close-mouthed about my political views that I’m afraid to share them even here. But I’ve decided that has to change.

I’m not sure that Facebook is the right environment–for anything, really; I continue to distance myself from the site in general.

But the truth is that even if my views are now very unpopular, I feel the need to stand up for them all the more. When I told my mother-in-law (a diehard Trump supporter) that I had gotten approved for disability, she said maybe I’d start voting Republican now. My relationship with her is still very shaky so I just laughed it off like “anything’s possible.”

But the answer really was HELL NO. I am not Republican. Especially not with the deranged path Trump is taking the party. I doubt I ever will be. I mean, my parents are still liberal. I don’t have to go conservative for any reason. And frankly I am absolutely terrified of the way this country is going.

I may sometimes have personal conflicts about abortion but those are related to my own personal ethics, not what I think should apply in terms of law. I am completely beyond horrified by the draconian restrictive laws recently passed in Georgia and Ohio.

My husband says not to worry because they’ll be challenged before the Supreme Court and ruled unconstitutional. I am not so sure about that and it makes me very scared.

Although I am generally anti-abortion for myself, I don’t know what I’d do if we had (yet another) vasectomy failure and I got pregnant now. I don’t think my health would do well with another pregnancy, and I definitely could not handle dealing with the sleep loss that goes along with having little ones.

Really, the way things are going feels way too much like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and it terrifies me. I don’t want my reproductive capabilities to be controlled by the state. (However, in a Handmaid’s Tale scenario, I’d probably be sent to the mines because of my disability, where I would surely die. Disabled and nearly too old to bear children makes me all but worthless in that scenario.)

I believe the Republicans are dead-wrong on health care, with some saying things like if you live “right” you won’t have pre-existing conditions. How exactly is my MS a matter of not living right?

Somebody needs to put their foot down about usurious student loan debt, out-of-control medical costs, the horrifying future of the environment. To me, the Republican Party is for supporting the rich and screwing over everyone else.

Many of their spokespeople, if not their official platform, are anti-LGBT, anti-Muslim, xenophobic, callous toward the poor and the disabled.

Just because I’m getting disability now doesn’t make me want to vote Republican. If anything, Republicans make me more afraid to be receiving disability. I am liberal and probably always will be.