Dear Protest Voters...

Genuinely, I do.

I hope you're pleased, even for a moment, with your indirect contribution to making life far, far worse for millions.

I hope all the suffering that will happen in the next four years was worth it for you to get your moment of self-righteous moral high ground of non-engagement.

Did you forget that over a million people died because Trump refused to do anything meaningful about a Global Pandemic, other than stoking race divisions and hate crimes, and promoting bogus 'cures' that did more harm than good when people followed his advice?

Did you forget that it was his Supreme Court picks that overturned Roe v. Wade, which has already lead to hundreds of deaths for women denied basic reproductive care?

Did you just not care, because Kamala wasn't perfect, so you decided that there was no difference between her, and a malicious incompetent whose multiple felony convictions and well-established track record of leaking state secrets somehow didn't disqualify him from a second term?

Did you look at all the Trump/Vance political ads that directly targeted Immigrants, or Trans and other LGBTQ+ people, and decide that because you weren't directly affected, it didn't matter?

I also hope that the next time an election comes around, you're still able to vote more sensibly.

My Dad, who lives in the USA with my step-mother, an American, is undergoing scans and surgery for cancer in the next few days and weeks. He has very good health insurance, but the scans are still thousands of dollars out-of-pocket, and I don't even want to think about what the surgery will cost.

Especially if the scans reveal that the cancer has spread, like we hope it hasn't.

The US Healthcare system already gives me nightmares, and it was worse under Trump. Biden at least put a cap on how much companies could charge for lifesaving medications like insulin.

Dad had a delay of over a month to get the scans done, because that was the earliest the hospital his health insurance covered could get him in. He couldn't go anywhere else without having to pay the entire cost out of pocket, which would have elevated the cost by orders of magnitude.

I'm scared for what a return to Donald Trump's Healthcare System would mean for him.

I'm also scared for what this means for the world.

Trump blurted out confidential information at state dinners, media interviews, and in random conversations. He's made it clear that things like Security Clearences and Top Secret are just words to him. He thinks Vladimir Putin is Goals, rather than a clear and present threat.

Five Eyes may very well decide that they'd prefer being Four Eyes, since the Fifth Eye has proven that he either doesn't understand, or doesn't care about, operational security. Trump already wants to withdraw from NATO. With four years ahead and plans to give himself legal free reign, what is next?

Biden and Harris were a needed check on Benjamin Netanyahu. (I may be Pro-Israel's right to exist, but that doesn't make me a Bibi fan.) Trump was Pro-Israel in a way that escalated simmering tensions the last time he was in office, and while he's been quiet on the subject of Gaza, he advocated sending the National Guard to arrest and imprison University Protestors, and he hasn't said anything to indicate he's interested in a ceasefire.

So, if you stayed home because you didn't think Kamala was being hard enough on the IDF, I hope you're happy now. Trump is bound to be much, much worse for the Middle-East in general, and Palestinians in particular.

If you voted for Trump, or decided to Protest Vote for whatever reason, I am very uncourteously requesting that you unfollow, unsubscribe, and get off my damn feed.

I am LGBTQ+, and I count Immigrants, other LGBTQ+ people, and countless other people that Trump has targeted directly or indirectly among my loved ones. You've proven that equality, decency and basic human rights are beyond your very limited sphere of interest.

Whether fact or fiction, my writing is not for you.