Riding With Pack Rats and Waking With Weasels of Political Anxiety: Everyday Magic, Day 1,015

Weasel Ready to Run or Rest

There it was -- a very large pack rat Ken was ready to fling with a pair of long tongs into the deep woods, far from where we could smell it anymore. I had been riding around with this dead rat embedded in the bowels of my car for several days, and it was horrendous. Then again, we live in the country where these things happen. Turns out that we live in a country where analogous kinds of things also happen.

Animals, particularly of the insect and rodent variety, make their way into our house and cars, doing extraordinarily expensive damage to lots of things under the car hood (pack rats find the innards of Honda Fits a rare delicacy), and usually just minor damage to us (mainly mosquitoes and occasional spiders). Having a well-sealed, energy-efficient home is no barrier to things that fly or scurry, even with our cat, who is obviously mouse-farming in the basement. This is normal for Kansas, despite mouse traps, citronella candles, and vigilance.

But what really causes me more than an occasional itch or surprise vehicle passenger are the weasels of my racing mind, prone to run marathons at 4 a.m., and plenty worried for the last six months about this country's upcoming presidential election. For a long time, the weasels were slow-moving fixators of anxiety, steeped in deep dread, sometimes tripping into ditches of pure horror. Since Kamala Harris entered the race, they began racing, their paws in the air as they pass the finish line, bringing me a sense of relief but racing nonetheless on the track of what-ifs. Particularly after I read too many newspaper articles of pundits pundit-ing or pollsters polling, the stakes of the race powered me awake at the wrong times.

While it's often hard to find a sense of equilibrium, it's much elusive in this political season for so many of us because of how much is at stake. If Trump were to win. The list of what would and could happen ranges from daunting to terrifying, including prosecuting journalists, seeking revenge against perceived enemies, massive deportations, striping civil servants of protections, cutting labor protections, further restricting abortion access, and decimating environmental protections, especially ones that slow climate change.

You don't need to be a student of history to know this all points toward the type of political repression and cruelty that humans are capable of at their worst. Having read up intensively on the Holocaust for years, the parallels to how the worst dictators in history gained power are startling. The outcome would be devastating: if you don't believe me, please look up Project 2025 -- this is clearly the playbook (Vance wrote the introduction, and you can find lots of evidence that links Trump to its development too).

A pack rat can destroy a car. A political dictator can destroy a country. While for much of my blog, I try to avoid sharing my political views too much because I don't want to alienate people who see the world differently, this is a moment that defies inaction. It's also startling that when I think back to other candidates I opposed; what they proposed seems like treatable diseases and injuries compared to burning down the whole house. Who knew some of us would ever applaud Dick Cheney or that he and many other Republicans would ever endorse a Democrat for president.

The dead pack rat is decaying in the woods, likely becoming food for other species. Meanwhile, the Republican candidate (and no, I won't compare him to a rat, who just wants to live) is spewing threats, attacks, and nonsense. I wake up each day to what I hope will emerge into a new day in America, even if it was hard to sleep the night before. Let that that new day emerge a little or lot more every day, and especially in the days after the election.