Lions, tigers, and bears, oh My! *
Or:
It’s the end of the world. . and voter fraud is. . . .What?!
In the seventh grade, 1961, I saw my first movie: The Wizard of Oz. I wondered how our Junior High was able to show it in our auditorium, but the administration pulled it off. I was enchanted. President Kennedy was in the first four months of his administration. The country was captivated by the First Lady. I was just pushing the window of puberty open when I saw the Wizard of Oz. I fell in love with Dorothy. Puberty was feeding me visions of her unexplored anatomical parts, especially after the lights were off. I was bewitched, captivated, and pumped full of emotions I didn’t have a clue about.
My mother’s Pentecostal congregation was not charmed with Kennedy’s charisma and good lucks. He was Catholic. His election was as a sign of the apocalypse from the Book of Revelations. Groupthink driven paranoia ramped. Often, during a summer evening service, the minister led them into the dark to look at night stars for signs of the end of times, led them in prayer, assuring them that the end of the world was fast approaching. It seemed that he looked into my evil, lusting heart. I didn’t feel as terrified by the Cuban Missile crisis as I did about Satan ripping my heart out while I, after dark, had mental and lustful thoughts about Dorothy.
The first evening of the Cuban Missile crisis, the night of a Wednesday evening service, there was a full eclipse of the moon. The moon was large and shining silver when evening services began. A person late for the services slammed the doors open, panting, telling the congregation that the moon was turning bloody. Her terrified eyes and voice belied her halleluiahs. My mother and the congregation rushed into the parking lot in front of their church, saw the silvery moon being replaced by a red curtain. The minister told them to cleanse their souls, pray, and prepare to be raptured as a group into the arms of Jesus.
It seemed as if he looked into my eyes when he said: “Only those with Jesus in their hearts, those who rebuke Satan will be raptured.” I was terrified waiting to be sucked through the gates of Hell. They sang songs from their hymnals but there was an undercurrent of fear wafting from those waiting to be raptured. Somehow the contradiction of their fear and joyful singing and prayers and the fact that I hadn’t sunk through the earth into Hell eased my fear.
Diagonally across the street from the church was a bar. Revelers poured into the street, drinks in hand, raucously cheering the bloody eclipse and shouting and pointing at my mother’s congregation. I was terrified not by the drunks; I had dealt with my father’s at least once weekly drunken episodes. The fear of being cast into the depths again, replaced my elation of being alive.
I didn’t want to be raptured or even find out that that night was one of the final days, even though I had no idea what that meant. Because, if my mother’s congregation and minister were correct about the end of times, The Wizard of Oz would be the only movie I’d see in my short life before that final day--predicted in my mother’s bible and the sermons of the spit-slinging Pentecostal preachers of her faith. The thought of the world being blasted apart by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, before I had been kissed by a girl, terrified me.
Since that night I’ve been kissed and have seen other partial and full eclipses of the moon and found them fascinating. I no longer fear that an eclipse signals the final hour. But the window to another apocalyptic brink keeps inching more and more open. The breath from the snorting of apocalyptic horses fuels the cold war arms race. Their radioactive breath hangs in the air, feeds personal and government paranoia. Major powers are locked and loaded, presumably, poised with their hands hovering close to the switch to launch Armageddon.
In a twisted piece of logic, I’ve become almost indifferent to the threat of nuclear holocaust and/or biblical Armageddon. The mantra of AL-Anon plays well: I didn’t cause it, I can’t cure it, I can’t change it. The scale of the destruction of earth’s human civilizations and a good part of the environment is so immense that it’s easier, feels safer, more secure to look at the ebb and flow of the political sludge stream we are subjected to every two years.
Colored with a touch of my paranoia, the macho man brinkmanship practiced by President 45 and the uber-conservative sycophants he appointed to key positions was troubling. His implication in inciting 01/06 and his obsession with finding a court(s) to intervene in the outcome of the election was maniacal and on-going. My worry spiked when I realized that, until Biden was sworn in, #45 had the launch codes to our bloated nuclear arsenal! As more and more courts and recounts confirmed Trump’s loss, his mental health seemed to worsen, decline even faster, pushing my worry towards critical mass: would he give up the nuclear code book Biden or in a last act of macho desperation push the button?
The 2021 vote withstood assaults from his minions including our Utah State Attorney General: Sean Reyes. Repeated attempts to make the election null and void and rejection by several courts eased my worry. The will of a slim majority of voters resulted in the swearing in of President 46. The codes to the nuclear arsenal were in better hands and our country survived another peek into oblivion. There is fallout. A stolen election and various conspiracy theories still circulate on various electronic social platforms. Some have traction in extremist groups, a kind of social quicksand. Applying incomprehensible logic, over half of the states of the Country have introduced laws to make it harder to vote!
Thus far this year, 28 states, including Utah, have introduced, pre-filed, or carried over 106 bills to restrict voting access. These proposals primarily seek to: (1) limit mail voting access; (2) impose stricter voter ID requirements; (3) limit successful pro-voter registration policies; and (4) enable more aggressive voter roll purges. These bills are an unmistakable response to the unfounded and dangerous falsehoods about fraud in the 2020 election. The serious fallout from this egregious movement, if ratified, will be to further disenfranchise minorities and economically marginalized citizens of their right to vote.
If our new National and Utah leaders really want to lead, want more Americans to vote, want a more informed public to vote they must make that right easier to do rather than harder. Voting rights must be consistently and easily available and applicable to all Americans of voting age. Voting has to be secure, easy to access, and understandable. It takes the brains of the scarecrow, the strength of the lion, and the heart of the Tin Man, Dorothy’s three companions in the land of Oz, and the willingness of leaders to risk their political position to accomplish this.
If the United States (NASA) can send five rovers to Mars, and a couple of rich guys, and the dude from Star Trek launch themselves almost into space, perhaps we should be able to apply that brain power and ingenuity to design a voting system that is inclusive, stress-free but secure, and easily deployable.
A footnote: I just mailed in my ballot! Hope the anti-voting rights Utah legislature doesn’t get wind of this!
*From my favorite movie The Wizard of Oz-1935
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/legal-voting-age-by-country.html
https://www.usa.gov/voting-laws
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-january-2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/30/us/republicans-voting-georgia-arizona.html