The Trump/Pence administration has a long list of people they intend to marginalize based on gender, orientation, race, religion, socio-economic status, and other factors.  I’m in several of those to-be-marginalized groups, and every other group includes people I care for.  Even if there were no one I know personally at risk for being marginalized, I’m the kind of human who believes that we all deserve liberty and justice.

I’m a farm-raised 60 year old white woman in a Red state.  By those demographics, I should respond to Trump’s rhetoric with bovine placidity or wild enthusiasm.  But demographics don’t fit individuals, and I am all about individuality.  I choose my religion, I embrace my gender and sexuality, I choose to despise racism and other forms of bigotry, and I refuse to be gaslit by an ego-maniacal fascist.

If I were healthy, wealthy, Christian, heterosexual, and all the other things required for a person to be valued by the new regime, I would still be fighting for the rights and freedoms of others.  But I’m not.  In addition to being a person this administration promises to marginalize, I’m on Social Security Disability and Medicare.  All the years I worked, I paid into the government safety net.  Now they may take it away.  I am deeply afraid of what the future holds for my 30 year old daughter and my 80 year old mother.

This administration threatens our rights in a way that will end the lives of some who would vote them out in future elections.  They will surely try to disenfranchise voters and use other tricks to make our elections less fair.  We must be strong and vigilant and united if we are to prevent that from happening.