Unpublished, but not Unsent v6

Photo of notorious friends Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia

Dear Editor,

For some of us, the 2016 election ushered in the post-compromise era. As an idealistic, former Cultural Awareness club member in high school, this was a precarious position to be in. I was taught to both respect, and have, an open mind. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" and all that. My initial reaction, when criticized for not having an open mind with regards to Republican policies, is to fall back on the obvious: I am a single issue voter, as I have made clear via social media. Reproductive justice and abortion rights are what I care most about; I will vote for any Democrat who supports the pro-choice movement, no matter what else (I’m ashamed to admit) s/he has done. But this got me thinking: how many Republican voters are single issue voters too, and simply supported trump in the same vein? The reason I asked myself this was because the 2020 Democratic presidential victory has given me the energy to begin to look at compromise as once again possible. If we are all single issue voters at heart, how can we compromise if those issues are in conflict?

One thought I had was to connect over the issues we do agree on, so I did an online search for pro-choice Republican groups. DM me if you know of any! I didn’t have much luck finding one; the Republican Majority for Choice doesn’t seem very active.

My next idea was to force myself to expand beyond my single issue. If I could do it, maybe some Republican could do it, too, and we could finally connect over that issue. Holding myself accountable to my yearning “to be more than an ally, but an accomplice” with the Black Lives Matter movement, I volunteered with Chicago Cares to be trained to “coach” [I am not a fan of this word] local job-seekers at the North Lawndale Employment Network to develop and practice job-seeking skills. When asked about the meaning of implicit bias, I said it was when you didn’t see the same potential in, for example, a Black child (like Barack Obama) playing basketball as you do a white child (like Alexander Pichushki) playing chess, when neither child is known to you. That really got me thinking, but more on that later. If a radical, pro-choice militant like myself is able to broaden her activism to encompass additional (albeit social justice) issues, maybe your everyday Republican can, too? So, if you’re, say, a fiscal conservative, we won’t be able to compromise about the economic viability of that, but perhaps we can connect around a shared disgust for a former president recorded saying:

“I did try and fuck her. She was married…I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there…When you’re a star, they let you do it…Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Then again, perhaps not:(