election – erniebufflo's south & west kitchen

November 9, 2016

the morning after

I started crying about an hour before it was clear that Trump was really winning the election, and I didn’t stop for hours. I shoved the unpopped champagne to the back of the fridge and poured myself a generous glass of bourbon. Since this is the internet and I’ve been lectured about everything down to my coffee drinking, yes, sometimes you do just want to drink straight liquor and sleep the sleep of the dead, and if such a loss isn’t the time, when is?

I woke up probably more hungover from the crying. I went downstairs when the girls stirred. Our houseguest for a week had left to catch her plane back home to Canada before we got up. She was a campaign fellow, a university student studying politics who had spent time working on the Clinton campaign here in Denver. She left the house key, a copy of Stronger Together, and the most beautiful letter. She let me know that she’s still in this fight with us.

“I was exactly the twins’ age when George W. Bush won in 2000…I learned as I grew up, much like the girls will, that sometimes, the right people don’t win…However, the fall of Bush led to the rise of Obama, and sometimes things like this must happen in order to witness some truly incredible things. Since Bush was elected, I became interested in politics and wanted to learn how to fight for the little guy. The first political book I read was The Assault On Reason by Al Gore…I know the future looks scary right now, but you and your family represent a side of America I am glad is still going. Etta and Claire, I already know you will grow up as strong, if not stronger than Hillary and learn from this. You are the reason why I have faith the views and values of Hillary will be passed on. When the girls are ready, like I was, they will read Stronger Together and learn…This is only beginning, and I have faith that Americans like you will continue to contribute society and push for the values we all hold so dear. We will always be #strongertogether.”

Buoyed by her letter, I went into the girls’ room and told him that even though we really wanted her to win, and even though mommy spent all that time in the campaign office, Hillary Clinton didn’t win the election. Claire immediately started crying. She knows Donald Trump says unkind things about and emboldens his supporters to do unkind things to people who are different. She’s a smart kid, and she knows she is different. Somehow she has more empathy and compassion than a lot of white voters did yesterday. I assured the girls that we will keep fighting for kindness in this country, and that we would never stop trying to make this place better. Claire didn’t much feel like eating her breakfast. “I just feel so sad,” she said. I need to let her feel sad. I need to let me feel sad too.

I got them off to school, their lovely, happy, hippy-dippy little school that is shaping them and their classmates into kinder, better citizens by teaching them kindness, courtesy, independence, inquisitiveness, and curiosity. Their teacher had already started circle time, but she and I exchanged shocked looks about the state of this nation. I drove home through the morning rush wondering how so many of us would manage to just live life today. I got home and got back into bed and snuggled with my cat. I think I hoped I’d wake up and things would be different. I woke up, no longer felt the sobbing-hangover, and fixed myself some coffee.

They’re home and napping now, and their wonderful dad just texted to let me know he’s coming home and said “Think about and let me know how I can best help you tonight.” The man should write a book on husbanding. I feel like a lot of the world is telling us Hillary supporters that we need to go ahead and move on already. Move on? Many of us just found out our country isn’t quite what we thought it was, that white people are still fearful enough and angry enough to elect a dishonorable, unkind, hate-mongerer to the highest office in the land, and that’s a lot to deal with. We are worried about our friends, family, and neighbors in this new world. Books about raising kids to be emotionally stable adults emphasizing how important it is to let our children feel their feelings and work through them. We need to allow ourselves to do the same. We need to be allowed to grieve and cry and rage before we are expected to figure out our next steps.

Tonight I want to go out to dinner with my family. I don’t feel like cooking. I want to let my kids take a bubble bath, and bundle them off to bed in their footie pajamas that make them so cuddly and cute. And then I think I want to watch The West Wing and pretend we just elected Bartlett instead. Tomorrow, we’ll see how I feel.

If you’re sad or angry or scared today, your feelings are valid. Check in with yourself and see how you can best care for yourself right now. You don’t have to have a grand plan to stop Trump from ruining the world right now. Obama is still the president, at least until January, and we’ll figure more stuff out by then. For now, let yourself feel your feelings. I’m here if you need to talk.

November 7, 2016

I’m with her. And her too.

You guys know I’m a yellow dog who’s all amped up for Hillary. I’ve been working really hard for her. But I’ve never really said why.

Honestly, when asked why I’m With Her, I usually want to say “EVERYTHING.” My politics are driven by my most deeply-held values: wholeness, unity, justice, equality, peace. In a world where people seem proud not to identify with either party, I can’t really pretend that I don’t agree with one on basically every issue. I care about women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, the environment, the poor, immigrants, education, and energy. I love Jesus, and I’m pro-choice.

But just like Claire’s diagnosis has changed our lives in many ways, it has changed my politics. My feminism has become bound up with disability rights. I want her to have every opportunity in life. I want her to always be treated with dignity. I want her to live in a world where she is valued as a whole person, where she will never worry about access to employment or healthcare, where she can dream big dreams and achieve them. And there’s only one candidate that can show my girls their dreams can include the presidency and who will fight for Claire’s rights and healthcare. It’s the candidate who has been fighting for children, people with disabilities, and everyone’s access to healthcare for her entire career.

One candidate has literally mocked people with disabilities. One candidate kicked a kid with cerebral palsy out of his rally: “Protesters get kicked out; it’s actually a mother and her children, one of whom who has cerebral palsy and worries what a Trump presidency would mean for people with disabilities. Supporters kick at the family, including the boy’s wheelchair, as Secret Service tries to escort them out.” His mockery of people with disabilities encourages his supporters to assault a person with disabilities and his family. His presidency threatens the very dignity and safety of people with disabilities, not just because he has promised to take away the healthcare reforms that have helped so many, including our family, but because he fails to set an even basic human kindness example for how we should treat people with disabilities. It shouldn’t shock anyone that he has zero policy proposals to help people with disabilities since he has so few policy proposals in general. (The man claims he will make America great “again” but seems to have very few concrete plans to make that happen.)

Hillary, in contrast, devoted an entire speech to policy proposals that would help people with disabilities. She proposes ending policies that allow people with disabilities to be paid less than minimum wage. She wants Congress to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She wants to improve access to employment and education for people with disabilities. And she wants to continue to improve access to healthcare for people with disabilities.

When I saw Bill Clinton speak at a rally on Friday, he talked about meeting a young Hillary supporter from Florida. He told Bill that he was a fan of Hillary’s because he had a feeling she “wouldn’t make fun of” him. Bill told him he was very smart. “That’s what they say, but I have a hard time getting through the day,” the boy said. Bill told him his feelings were correct, that Hillary has been fighting for kids like him for her entire career (like when she helped found the still-operational organization Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families), and that while in the Senate she had work
ed on legislation to help people with Autism.

I always knew I’d be voting for my first female president for my daughters. I didn’t always know I’d have a daughter whose spina bifida would turn me into a disability rights advocate. But because of her, I have one more reason to be proud to stand with Her.

I’ll be at the campaign office today and tomorrow. If you have any time to spare at all, please do what you can to help out. You can even phone bank from home to make sure people know where their polling place is and have a plan to get there and vote. We need all the help we can get! And above all: get out and vote! Even if the line is long. It matters so much.

August 25, 2016

do one thing every day that scares you

Or in my case, do it twice a week.

If I call my family or best friends on the phone, they usually answer with a panicky “IS EVERYTHING OK?” This is because I do not like talking on the phone. I hate it. Once, my voicemail was borked for like 6 months, and I didn’t realize it. I was just delighted that everyone had finally realized that texting is my love language and stopped calling me.

But, my kids recently started preschool, and I signed up to volunteer for the Hillary Clinton campaign in my newfound free time. And you know what they needed me to do? Phone bank. Yep. I go in, and they hand me a flip phone and a list of names to call. Thank God they’re at least people who have supported Democrats in the past, because getting yelled at by Trump supporters on the phone isn’t something I want to deal with– seeing them pop up in my Twitter mentions is bad enough.

This is me, awkwardly making calls on a flip phone.

So yeah, twice a week, I go do a thing I utterly hate. I actively dread it before I go. But I push through the awkwardness and anxiety because I think winning this election (and electing Democrats to the House and Senate) is SO IMPORTANT. I want to be able to tell my kids one day that I did everything I could to stop Donald Trump and elect our first woman president. The idea of a Trump presidency gives me actual nightmares. Knowing that I’m helping stop it helps me sleep at night.

Do you have any free time at all? Does the idea of a Trump presidency scare you? Then push through the awkwardness with me and sign up to volunteer. Go to hillaryclinton.com, click ACT up top, and sign up. An organizer will contact you (mine’s an awesome guy named Cortrell) and get you signed up to do whatever you can in whatever time you have. You might end up phone banking. You might register voters. You might canvass your neighbors. You might do data entry. But you’ll be helping America avoid a Trump presidency, and that is a BIG FREAKING DEAL. It’s worth doing, even if the idea of calling strangers on the phone makes you break out into a cold sweat. We can do this. After all, we’re #StrongerTogether.

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