During the record-breaking early season snowstorm of 2024, a fascist administration took the White House on a platform of disinformation. Now, I am the enemy within. I will fight fascism, but I am not fighting because my personal freedoms have been denied. As a white person growing up in a middle-class neighborhood, I did not experience injustice, but I saw it at school. Regrettably, my teacher did not teach that discrimination was wrong; I just knew that discrimination was wrong.

I am fighting fascism because other people’s rights will be destroyed when this newly elected administration takes over. I am fighting because the forest is beautiful when everyone flourishes.

Aside from my skin color, my greatest privilege in life was growing up secular. Without religion, I have led a life of knowledge, achievement, and peace. Today, more than ever, I give thanks to mom and dad for not forcing me to embrace an ideology that does not want me to think.

Living in Texas, I still absorbed plenty of religious doctrine. Children were taught that when we grew up, we could choose to be a missionary to bring the word to Africa. I understood that the Africans were doomed simply because of where they had been born. God had not given them the word and in so doing, gave humans two levels of personhood. Obviously, with their eternal life and streets of gold, the people with the word were superior to the people born in Africa.

This is a terrible lie that humans continue to pay for in blood and unrealized potential. In reality, there are no levels of personhood. We are life. That life may be scarred with sickness or insulated with wealth, but no one chooses which they get. We get one life, and we can spend that life pushing people down or lifting them up.

As for me, I reject discrimination because everyone is equal, we are just born into unequal circumstances. Some spruce trees are born in the forest where everyone flourishes. Other spruce trees are born further away where survival is more challenging.

I would have been less surprised to find an alien in my bed than to find Trump in the White House, again. I heard Harris’ plan to expand assistance to help elderly people. I heard Harris’ plan to spark innovation by giving grants to small businesses. I heard Harris’ plan to assist first time home buyers.

Now, for as long as she is able, my stepmom will continue to pay for home care for dear old Granny. Now, we get tax cuts for the rich and hell at the border. Discrimination is the foundation of our most profound problems. Discrimination is the sound of desperate children who cannot find their parents at the US border. Discrimination is a dad who cannot view his daughter as an equal.

I was up before dawn preparing for my first battle. I could not be silent although that is my nature. When Hitler was voted into office, there was someone in Germany who was silent and regretted it; I will not be that person. So, at 8am, I dialed up my dad, a Trump supporter, for our first Sunday Morning Phone Call after our government was stolen with lies.

We always talk about the weather, but this week, we both experienced norm-breaking storms. He had 11” of rain and I had 3 feet of snow.  He talked about his “tideline” of grass cuttings where the rainwater had backed up in his yard.

He talked about how they now prefer the old-time mac and cheese made with powder instead of Velveeta, which had been the all-time family favorite for years. He likes it with a bit of milk while stepmom prefers no milk. They both like to eat it with Spam, cut into cubes and fried in a skillet. And speaking of Spam, did he know they now make plant-based Spam? For vegetarians and meat eaters, that’s funny on so many levels!

I talked about how I was not prepared for such a strong winter storm. If the electricity had gone out, I may not have had enough wood to keep warm. And I couldn’t walk anywhere because my snow boots and my snow pants were still in storage.

He suggested using plastic bags on my feet which was exactly what I had done. I was not going to let the lack of proper clothing stop us from going outside in 3 feet of snow. In fact, Ember ran around the forest in such a state of ecstasy, that by storm’s end, our neighbor had to drive us to the vet in his big white truck. (Something had upset her eye, but thanks to a good friend, science, and steroid eye drops, Ember is a happy dog again.) 

Time was ticking down. I needed to bring it up, but first another recipe from the lady who nurtured his fondness for fried Spam. Cowboy Salad: one can of green peas, two hard boiled eggs, chopped onion, two spoons sweet dill relish and three spoons of Mayo. Refrigerate then serve.

As much as I love my dad and Cowboy Salad, a flourishing and equal society is more important than individual lives. It was hard, but finally, I said, “Our recent election was terrible. Lying is the easiest way to control people, and Trump ran a campaign of disinformation. It’s happened before. Hitler was voted into office.”

I had planned to say that Putin was also voted into office, but as soon as I had begun, he was talking over me, so I grew silent. The patriarch was saying, “Biden may have gotten more votes, but he still wouldn’t have won the election.”

“At least he wouldn’t have dealt with all the woman hating.”

Which reminded him of the exit poles and how women’s freedom was at the bottom of the What’s Important list. I said, “I do not blame the voters. They were lied to.”

Then, like every good little Republican he sought refuge in discrimination and brought up immigration. I only said, “They were lied to.”

Discrimination is an old and worn out lie. It was born in the darkness of ignorance, but today we stand on the mountain top. We see the past and imagine a better future. We do not submit to someone else’s greed and we choose truth, however unpleasant, over a comforting lie.

We are life. We choose knowledge, achievement, and peace so that everyone may flourish.