I Marched Because My Vote Didn't Count

 

I went to the Women's March on Washington this weekend with some friends from my grad program at WVU. Here I am decked out in all my finery:

 

 

 I had known before I went to the march that I wasn't the only American dismayed by the outcome of the 2016 election -- far from it. Hillary won the popular vote by 2.9 million, but because our electoral system is jacked, my own vote and that of three million other Americans just didn't count. Hillary Clinton got more than 65.8 million votes. That means there's a good chance that any person you might meet voted for Hillary, and that's not even counting the 40 percent of eligible voters that didn't bother to participate in the democratic process. I think it's safe to assume that some percentage of those people don't support Trump, even if they might be somewhat apathetic in their dislike. But you know what they say -- if you don't vote, you're not allowed to complain when they take you to the camps.

But even though I knew that many people oppose Trump's rhetoric and policies, it was still pretty awesome to see them all in one place, with my own eyes. Conservative estimates place the Women's March turnout at half a million. I would not be surprised if there were 700,000 or more. There were so many people at the March that we couldn't even march. We just kind of shuffled on Washington. We also stood still on Washington quite a lot. Several renditions of "We Shall Overcome" were sung, along with "This Land Is Your Land," "This Little Light of Mine," and a peppy one that was, ironically, about marching. There was also the requisite chanting. My favorite chant was "We want a leader, not a creepy tweeter," although "Fuck you Trump" also had a certain ring to it.

There were many creative signs.

After we had our fill of shuffling, singing, and chanting, we went back to the place where we were staying and the lovely people who welcomed us into their home for the weekend, where we found out that others were marching in cities all over the country -- and the world. Three quarters of a million people turned out in Los Angeles alone. They were even marching in Antarctica. With 673 marches worldwide, some are calling the Women's March on Washington the largest protest in history. 

We all want President Tinyhands to do a good job, myself included, but it doesn't seem likely. I didn't like Dubya, but it would be great if we could give Twitler back and get Dubya instead. I'd settle for giving Trumplethinskin back and getting Reagan's disintegrating corpse instead. Compared to Trump, Reagan's disintegrating corpse would make a FINE president.

I didn't post about the election, even though I wanted to. I kept trying to put my thoughts and feelings into words, but what could I say? I've always been fascinated by the Many Worlds theory, and I've believed, deep down, that there must be an alternate universe out there, or perhaps many alternate universes. But now I realize that this is the alternate universe, and the normal, sane universe, where the President paid attention in kindergarten and therefore knows how to be nice and share, is chilling out somewhere else, separated from us by a skin as thin as a soap bubble's, so close we can almost touch it. Maybe, together, we can make it to that place.

But in the meantime, #ReagansCorpse2020.