Reminder: The Government is Us. Really.

Note: This is a personal essay that mentions no political parties and no candidates.

My mother Alicia Holland McManamy was an election judge.

She proudly served in that capacity several times in the 1960s and 70s, walking two city blocks to work 12 hours on Election Day at a polling place in the gymnasium of St. Nicholas of Tolentine Grammar School in the Bronx, NY. Lee McManamy's husband and all five of her children graduated from that same school.

More than 50 years later, my late mom would be enormously proud that her youngest son Bobby was once again serving as a Cook County Election Judge, now for the sixth time since 2008. She would be shocked and appalled, however, to discover that such civic duty in 2024 actually involves risk of physical harm. Think about that...

Election judges are people, too

When I voted early last week at Prairie State Community College, I was greeted by a pleasant elderly election judge who gave me my ballot. I thanked her for her public service. She smiled appreciatively and said that when I was done, I should turn in my ballot across the room to the judge standing by the exit door. "That's my husband. He's 86," she added.

Surprised, I asked the woman how much work being an Early Voting judge entails. She said that both she and her husband were working several hours a day for 17 straight days, culminating with the final 15 hours that judges are expected to put in on Election Day, itself.

Would that I will still have that measure of stamina when I am in my 80s.

Their matter-of-fact sense of patriotism also reminded me of my late friend, Ed Fizer of Park Forest, whom I had met as a fellow election judge in 2010 in Flossmoor. Ed was 85 at that time, had one leg, and listed himself as only a crossing guard here on LinkedIn. A light voter turnout for the midterm elections that year allowed the two of us to chat and become friends.

I was astounded to learn that Ed was one of the first African-American U.S. Marines and had enlisted at 16 with a note from his mother right after Pearl Harbor. Sent to the Pacific Theater, he played baseball with Jackie Robinson in the service and later became a Chicago policeman in the 1950s and 60s. In that capacity, he eventually served on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s security detail whenever he would visit Chicago. The two men became friends.

Ed died in 2020 at 95. I have written more about him before in prior posts, but I present him here as just your run-of-the-mill election judge. Like my mom, Ed, and the husband-and-wife team I met only last month, the trait that all of these fellow citizens have in common is a sense of community, of public service. They are simple, everyday patriots.

But this year, for the first time in my memory, election judges are now targets. And that includes me. So, excuse me if I seem alarmed, but I do have skin in this game.

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Absurd new risk levels: 'It's Scary.'

In mid-October, this alarming headline introduced the lead story on the front page of a Sunday issue of the Chicago Tribune:

Election Officials Pushing Integrity: Talk of Buying Body Armor Arises Amid Fears of Conspiracy Theories.?

Worrisome news. That means all the irresponsible public chatter and social media hysteria of the last four years is boiling over now. To the point where there is now a full-blown crisis of both confidence and fear even among local election officials.?

Speaking to the Tribune, a worried Scott Erickson, president of the Illinois Association of County Clerks, said: “We pray that nothing does happen, not only in Illinois, but across the country, that no election officials are threatened or attacked in any sort of way… It’s scary.”?

Indeed, there is a wild, untethered firehose of misinformation spraying us all, every day in 2024. Those maligned includes election judges like yours truly, and other paid volunteers, many elderly, who have signed up to be temporary, one-day, government employees.

Unfortunately, in some states, these same friends and neighbors are now being labeled as “enemies of the people.”?(If you think I am exaggerating, look for an update on the terrified mother-daughter election judges in Georgia who have finally found legal remedy for what one public figure did to them in 2020.)

Indeed, this fall, public servants, myself included, are being demonized by would-be election deniers across the U.S. Unsettling, to say the least. One friend in Northern Virginia who will also be serving as an election official next month just told me last week that she and fellow judges are being trained this year in “conflict?de-escalation."

On Friday, November 1, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced that he was activating units of the National Guard to be on alert throughout the state for the 2024 election. This came after hundreds of ballots had been discovered damaged or destroyed by use of an incendiary device in a drop box in Vancouver, WA. "Based upon general and specific information and concerns regarding the potential for violence or other unlawful activity related to the election, I want to ensure we are fully prepared to respond," explained Inslee.

Hearing news like that, I cannot help but substitute my mom for all of us at-risk judges this week in America. But certainly, the targets extend well beyond election officials.

A Miami-based FEMA employee visiting Homewood this October told me that colleagues in devastated Asheville NC were nervous and fearful because of anonymous threats from local, anti-government groups (possibly militia members). Threats were reportedly made against FEMA personnel and even National Guard members because wild rumors had circulated that the federal government was only there for the purpose of seizing flood victims' property.

While federal, state and local authorities were all scrambling to respond in the early days of the crisis, I heard one local consumer of these rumors state: "I hate our government."

To that, I just say, "But our government is us."

Otherwise, when we convince ourselves that "we the people" are actually "the other," well, then very bad things can happen. Indeed, hate makes rash actions inevitable...

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The roots of this irrational hate

Twenty-nine years ago, on April 19, 1995, a sudden, violent act of domestic terrorism rocked Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, slaughtering 168 of our fellow citizens and exposing a fault line in in U.S. society that most of us had no idea even existed.?

That evil?act?"tore beam from column, truss from joist, and all rhyme from reason," I wrote that week for?Engineering News-Record?magazine, reporting from the smoldering site of America's gaping, self-inflicted wound. The morning blast to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building indiscriminately killed and maimed a largely black and brown group of civil servants, claiming the lives of 19 children in a daycare center on the first floor. Hundreds more were injured, the Oklahoma capital was in shock, and the nation watched in bipartisan horror as evidence pointed to a new, radicalized enemy from inside America...

What had caused this unprovoked atrocity?

In a word,?HATE.

Specifically,?HATRED?of our federal government.

Twenty-five years and eight months later, on January 6, 2021, that brand of hatred again was on full display in Washington DC, when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol. Indeed, that horrible day was eye-opening for all of us who watched in horror as our nation seemed to fall into hostile hands for hours on end. Anything and everything seemed to be on the table.

It has occurred to me that the Oklahoma City bombers would have felt right at home in that mob. They shared the same hatred of the federal government and a paranoia that is much worse and more pervasive today in certain segments of our population that the so-called 'Deep State' is out to get all of us. But especially them.?

Ironically, I think the roots of this hate can be traced to the 1986 words of Ronald Reagan, who famously said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"?

At the time, that quip got big laughs from his conservative audience, including my father, who heard it later on the national news.?

But those words also did grievous harm to the compact that 'We the People' have with each other to try to govern this place we call America. And I would argue that it planted the "terrifying" seeds for both OKC in 1995 and the attack on the Capitol in 2021.?Will there be more examples in the days and weeks ahead?

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My prayer today is that, at long last, we can take a breath and steer ourselves and our children off this path of corrosive hatred that has poisoned families and friendships for decades now. After all, local, county, state, and federal governments are staffed by friends and neighbors, human beings with the same hopes, dreams, doubts and disappointments that we all have. They are not the enemy... They are us. They should never have been made the butt of a joke that dehumanized them into potential targets.

As a graduate of the University of Virginia, I saw my alma mater overrun by HATE for 24 "terrifying" hours in 2017. It was jarring and tragic, to say the least, but my mind now focuses more on the candlelight vigil that took place just days later in front of Thomas Jefferson's iconic Rotunda. There was both healing and hope in that symbolic exercise.

This year, as an election judge and citizen, I pray that this irrational and paranoid hatred still coursing through so much of America will not manifest itself again.

As Lincoln pleaded in his first inaugural, on the eve of the Civil War,?

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.”

May we all remember that next week and beyond, when the rhetoric grows even more heated and the accusations fly even more wildly. We are fellow Americans, after all. Friends, neighbors, voters, judges, citizens all. We deserve each other's respect. Stay calm and citizen on.

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