Election Day

and the political heart

I was seven when Jimmy Carter was elected president, but he’s not the first president I remember. I remember watching the Watergate hearings when I was three, sitting on the living room floor while my mother folded laundry. I remember the serious tone of what she was watching and how she felt about it.

I remember my mother and my grandmother passionately discussing their opinions of both President Nixon and President Ford. I remember my grandfather quietly saying that he was honored to pay taxes, that it was his civic duty to vote. He spoke about FDR with reverence, the same way my parents spoke about JFK.

My mother volunteered when Carter ran for president. I went with her to the Democratic Party headquarters in our small town. I helped her stuff envelopes. My parents and grandparents loved Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn. The Carter’s daughter Amy was two years older than me. I remember looking at images of her and thinking, I bet we like the same books.

When we shopped for school clothes that year, I found a gold peanut necklace and a t-shirt that said Peanut Power, references to Jimmy Carter’s past as a peanut farmer. “You can have them,” my mom said, “but you should understand that not everyone supports Carter. Some people might say mean things to you when you wear them.”

I thought about it.

“I want them,” I said, and I wore them. I wore the necklace everyday, even after the gold plating rubbed off of the peanut.

My perception of politics when I was a child was simple and idealistic. I thought candidates presented their ideas and people voted according to their ethics, for the person whose policies were the most compassionate.

As I got older my personal political opinions shifted to the left of the Democratic Party. I became more cynical about the system. I’ve been hopeless, angry, and energized by politics through out my life, but I’ve always voted. I’ve never witheld my vote from the Democratic candidate-either by refusing to vote or voting third party-because to do so would serve to move the party to the center and I don’t want that. I want to move it to the left.

I’ve never thought of myself as patriotic - patriotism always sounded too much like Nationalism or exceptionalism to me - but I’ve always been politically active. And even when I’ve felt cynical or hopeless, even in the somber understanding that my vote is not a love letter, I’ve never thought my political opinions didn’t matter.

Sometimes people in the spiritual sphere will say they don’t have political opinions, that they are politically neutral, or they aren’t political. But physical existence is spiritual, and if you can honestly say that politics don’t matter to you, you are in a position of immense privilege. Most of us are not. It matters very much to our wellbeing which people are elected into office in this country.

Today, America is making a choice. The first woman president or the end of democracy as we know it. We are in the shift now. The big one. We are pushing ahead into a new world. Something is dying and something is being born. I’m hopeful and terrified and exhausted. And I keep thinking about what President Biden said from the Oval Office in July, America is an idea. I feel something akin to patriotism when I think about that.

When Carter was in office, my brother, my parents, my grandparents, and I went on vacation to Florida. On the way, we stopped in Plains, Georgia. My grandfather liked to keep to a tight schedule on trips, so we couldn’t stay long. We saw the Carter’s street, though there was a security baracade to keep us from driving by their actual house. We parked on the main street of this tiny, tiny town in front of a country store and paid homage to the President of the United States of America, a man who, we believed, had all of our best interest at heart.

One of the things that made Carter unpopular was the fact that he sounded the alarm bell about climate that no one wanted to hear. Today, it’s 80 degrees in November. My nieces stand at the beginning of adulthood. I want them to bodily autonomy and access to gender affirming care. I want to live in a country that welcomes rather than fears. I have an idea about America. I have a lot of ideas. And my heart hurts.

Last night, as I nervously scrolled through TikTok, I landed on a video posted by Amy Carter’s son. He panned the camera around to show his mother, driving the car he was riding in. Amy Carter, still looking like a familiar friend, like someone with whom I could trade book recommendations. Amy Carter and I, in our fifties now.

Her father is still my favorite president.

I hope he’s here, in his body and on this earth, to see Kamala Harris sworn in as president of these ever-evolving united states. And then I hope he lifts away from his physical body and flies to a better feeling place, fully restored and free in the knowledge that he lived his life to the best of his ability, and that it made a difference.

If you’re interested in reading more of my thoughts about the big shift, spirituality, and politics, check out Cosmic Heart. I’m sharing it here as a I write it.