Mid-term elections in the United States: who wins, who loses?
Priscilla Gac-Artigas
Fulbright Scholar/Full Member North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE)/Correspondent Member RAE Professor Emerita of World Languages, Monmouth University, NJ
Mid-term elections in the United States: who wins, who loses? By *Gustavo Gac-Artigas
Translated by Priscilla Gac-Artigas
Who wins, who loses in the mid-term elections in the United States?
I lose.
We find ourselves again in a recurrent scenario, elections that are like two drops of water, the same faces, the same smiles, but murkier drops sharpening the confrontation between a country divided in two.
“Democracy is in danger,” they tell us, and terrified I wonder, what if the enemies of democracy win --as it is possible and the polls indicate-- where will I flee to with my family? Will I see the supporters of democracy heading to jail or exile, long lines of beings with lost eyes walking towards nothingness, to hit a wall, to walk in a labyrinth with no way out?
Is democracy really in danger in these elections? I would say “no.”
And it seems irresponsible, populist, demagogic to play with fear, to put us in front of an alternative in which the other party is the enemy.
For me, the enemy is someone else. It is those who in both traditional parties oppose change, who continue to serve the big capital, who add their votes on both sides to defend the petty interests of those who buy their place in power.
It is that minority that endangers democracy. It is that minority that uses its power to blackmail and prevent any change that touches the interests of their bosses from happening. Because they are not legislators "of, by, and for the people" they are the representatives of big capital, of that minority whose fortune and ambition exceeds the limits of decency and takes advantage of the pain of others, of the misery of others, of war, to continue, greedy without borders, increasing their wealth.
They are the ones who propose that we continue voting without thinking of a social change or an improvement of our situation. That do not want us to vote for a fairer, kinder society. They want our vote to be that of contained rage, of the individual, of every man for himself, of my interests as an isolated human being, the vote for my pocket.
I vote with rage thinking about the prices at the supermarket, about the fact that I have to lower the quality of my food because I cannot afford it while the supermarket chains keep lining their pockets.
I vote with rage because I just filled up my car's tank and have to think twice before going somewhere while the oil tycoons keep winning, scandalously winning.
I vote with rage because inflation is approaching 10% but my income is not increasing.
I vote with rage because I have to ask myself twice before going to the doctor. Hopefully, I don't have anything serious, I tell myself as I wander through the shelves of syrups and pills that, if I am lucky, will alleviate my pain or my anguish.
I vote with rage because I was promised an improvement in my situation and nothing changed but for worse.
I vote with rage, and rage is a bad advisor. I start thinking of myself and not of others, and my vote is not social, it makes me selfish, it isolates me, it makes me easy prey to the sellers of illusions, to the autocrats, to those who want nothing to change, the true enemies of democracy, that precious good.
I vote with rage because they tell me that tomorrow’s elections determine the presidential elections of the future, and they offer me, as the only option, the candidacy of two octogenarians, two who will face each other in a deja vu election with promises, but without change. On the one hand, without the necessary strength to carry out the changes, with the ravages of age, on the other, an apprentice autocrat, a misogynist King Midas of excessive ambition.
It is not enough to say “I need a majority” if that majority includes the Trojan horse, the enemies of democracy who, with their vote, will prevent any change that has a cost for the owners of capital.
Who loses? Not them, I.
Does anyone win? Not me, not those around me, not those at the bottom, “los de abajo,” “los olvidados,” not those who are manipulated, not those they want to pigeonhole: the Hispanic vote, the African-American vote, the female vote, the male vote, the trans vote, the vote with a last name and not the sovereign vote, the vote with social meaning, the vote of the “of, by, and for.”
One election looks like another until we say enough is enough! And if those entrenched in both parties, guarantors that nothing changes cling to their posts, let us remove them. Let us open the way to a vote of conscience and not of rage so that one election is not like two drops of water to another, and this is called democracy.
*Chilean writer, poet, and theater director, corresponding member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language. He lives in the U.S.A.