Five out of ten voters emboldened our daughters’ rapists.
It’s been almost a full month since election day. Every presidential vote cast was for a political, social, and global leader. A simple action with powerful consequences. The candidate we chose is a convicted criminal, held liable for sexual assault, and accused of numerous other legal and moral crimes against humanity. Thanks to both our nation’s active and absent voters, the United States of America is likely facing some of the hardest times those of us living have ever seen. Every day it sinks in a little more— like a slow drip punishment, and every human who believes rape is immoral will suffer.
When I walked into the office the morning of November 6th, 2024 my employer and my co-worker were mid conversation. I teared up a little. I couldn’t imagine how I could get through a work day after one of the world’s most powerful nations elected a lawfully proven sex offender into their highest office of the land. My peers looked up at me when I sat down and I tried my best to hold it together. If I remember correctly I took a stab at light humor to soften the edge. It didn’t work. Within minutes what burst from my lips was— “I am not okay. My daughter was raped, and we just elected a rapist to become president of the United States.”
The cries are still so ugly. I don’t know if you can ever cry enough to make your sobbing pain polite. Some things just hurt too much.
I didn’t realize it, but for those first 18 years as a mother I was silently praying. Amidst a million other prayers I was praying that no one would rape my children. I knew the odds were not in my favor, but nevertheless I prayed, “Please keep them safe from the assault of unconsented human touch.” When we brought our first born home from the hospital I didn't know that one day she’d call me on the phone and find a way to tell me “Mom, I said ‘NO’ and he wouldn’t stop.”
This is the part of parenting they don’t tell you about. In a respectable effort to protect privacy we reserve the hardest parts for only our most trusted people. She was 2000 miles from home when she refused a sheriff’s escort and her best friend drove her 50 miles away to complete the rape kit.
I wasn’t with her when she swallowed the pills to stop a pregnancy, or when she waited for the STD results. I wasn’t with her on the days she talked to the police, or for the times she couldn’t bring herself to answer their phone calls. I wasn’t with her when she handed over her soiled sheets and the towel he cleaned himself up with. I could only talk to her by voice when she agonized over the decision of whether or not to press charges— for over a year we weighed the pros and cons, while her rape kit sat in county evidence files. I stretched and twisted and tore apart as I found room to let her move through this her way and without my play by play direction. She was a young adult in the midst of hard life lessons, but emotionally still and always my baby.
I didn’t know the first time I kissed the top of her sweet tiny head that 18 years later she would be sexually assaulted by a stranger I’ll never meet. A man who continued to walk free through her grocery store, apartment complex, place of employment… like a trauma time bomb slowly ticking away at her sense of safety.
I think our babies are born small because our hearts don’t stretch enough as parents to take on the full expanse of what it means to raise a child in a dangerous world.
When our nation— people I would call friends, neighbors, family — voted a rapist into the oval office for a second term all I wanted was to scoop up my children and tuck them back inside- the place I was most capable of protecting them. But the hardest reality to face as a parent is that you’ll never be able to protect them from other people. People are the best and worst thing that will ever happen to them. All of election season I prayed, and I hoped, and I fought in the most mama bear way I thought I was capable of, but the voters still voted for a rapist.
Turns out I was wrong. I could have fought harder. It may not have changed the outcome, but I could have fought harder. I know that now. The rage I’m feeling now came to teach me that I can fight harder. And I will. I will find peace in nature. I will find solace in my children’s love. I will fall apart on my husband's shoulder. And I will fight harder. My rage will not not soil me because it will be fueled by my moral integrity.
I don’t expect my president to be perfect. I don’t seek leaders (or friends) who are exactly like me. But I do have boundaries and one of them is “If you rape women, I will not vote you into presidency.” I thought more of us had this boundary, but apparently we don’t. My black friends knew better. My trans friends knew better. But I let my cookie cutter privilege overcome me. Now I understand in a new way what it is to be blinded by hope. I thought if I kept showing up, kept helping people, and kept shifting perspective it would be enough. Enough to keep her safe. Enough to keep us safe.
But there is no boundary that can hold up against weapons of delusion.
It is a delusion to joke that he’s just being funny when he talks about grabbing pussy. It’s delusional to think that you will be better off with a fruitful stock portfolio than safer sisters. It’s a delusion to believe propaganda when the real facts are there for the taking. No one is safe with a rapist driving the bus.
In a humanity grasping for control some will feel more powerful with Trump at the helm, but they are not. In the twisted truth of human psychology some will even feel protected, but they are not. Fooled by the price of eggs some will say it’s worth it, but it is not. No one is safe when a rapist drives the bus.
Two days after the election my daughter went to work, and he was there, as a new employee he re-invaded her space. Human Resources said go to the police. The police said go to the Sheriff. The Sheriff said go to the court. She said, “Mom I’m too tired; I can’t.” And I couldn’t blame her. Days after that she did gather the courage to go to the court; she sat in front of a judge, told her story and he denied her a restraining order. “I feel so vulnerable,” she texted me, and together we sobbed. Her rapist was stripping her all over again, but this time even the people watching and listening wouldn’t stop him.
Ten days after the election, six hundred and two days after the rape, she decided to press charges. The rape kit was resurfaced and seven days later he was arrested. Now we wait. He’s free; innocent until proven guilty by a court of law. A district attorney vs. a rapist. While we wait we pray not to be assaulted by the judicial system, and we pray he doesn’t go after the next girl, and the next...
There are three things that I remember and teach when times like these arise. They live on my smartphone screen as a constant reminder, and more importantly they live in my heart. They are: PERMISSION, PERSPECTIVE, and PERSEVERANCE.
We cannot get through this without PERMISSION to feel. There isn’t an emotion I haven’t felt in the months surrounding the 2024 election. And there isn’t an emotion I haven’t felt as a parent of a rape survivor. We cannot change what is wrong in the world without acknowledging, accepting, and processing emotion. There is no right way to feel when you are doing hard things.
In life there are also as many ways to see something as there are lives that have ever been lived. PERSPECTIVE clears the path toward compassion, connection, and creative problem solving. In the face of the reality that your daughter’s rapist roams free it’s easy to want to zoom in and wreak havoc. But without a wider lens I am incapable of living a full life. Every day, and with perspective, we take one next step forward. We persevere.
There was nothing I wanted to do at 2:30am on November 6th more than find a cave with a bear in it and live out my dying days. I was crushed. I felt defeated. I wondered if every effort I’ve ever made was wasted. I felt that way when I first learned of her rape too. But when being human knocks us down we have to get back up and keep going. PERSEVERANCE is non-negotiable when fighting for a safer world.
I have so much more to say about all of this, but what I wish is for more of us to start to see that every vote cast for a morally lacking and criminally manipulative candidate is a vote for my daughter’s rapist, our daughters’ rapists. When our elected leaders knowingly assault women we affirm their behavior for all of our citizens. When we choose a leader we adopt a set of principles. We could have elected a criminal prosecutor and a coach, but we chose a rapist and a rightist.
I don’t yet know how to be friendly with my neighbors who voted for a rapist. I don’t yet know how to converse with the cousin whose arms have held me in love, but whose hands voted for a rapist. I don’t yet know how to live in a community, a nation, a world that didn’t take this democratic opportunity to say, “NO. THIS HAS GONE TOO FAR AND IT STOPS NOW. I WILL NOT VOTE FOR A RAPIST.”
Other than permission, perspective, and perseverance I don’t know how to find my way back to okay and then to thrive, but I will figure it out. I hope you’ll figure it out with me.
