Seventeen Minutes: What the presidential debate taught me

One could say that I am slightly obsessed with politics, but that would be an understatement. It’s more like a fetish, and, in this current political climate, one could call it masochistic. 

After Barack Obama became president, it was easy to ignorantly believe that, as a nation, we had moved past hate and the idea that if you don’t look like me, pray like me, or opine like me, you are not worthy of the title American, like me. I remember lying in bed with my pooch while streaming the 2008 election coverage on my laptop. I gazed out the window that overlooked the streets of Harlem, feeling a palpable sense of hope in the air. 

As soon as the race was called, cheers and shouts poured through my fire-escape window, overwhelming me with relief and joy at what this win meant to so many of us––change in the right direction. I admit, living in the bubble of New York City’s progressive and creative environment made it easy for me to be naive about the actual state of our country–a stark reality that would become apparent when I moved to the Midwest in 2013, and became the target of constant microaggression. 

Four years of the Trump administration was also a harsh reminder of how much progress was still needed in our country when it came to bigotry, racism, and hate.

In 2020, amidst the pandemic, after running out of Tiger King and Trixie and Katya YouTube episodes to binge, most of us found ourselves obsessively tuned into the news. It was a helpless feeling as many of us witnessed people of color being senselessly killed in their own homes and on crowded streets by the very authorities, paid for with our hard-earned tax dollars, who were supposed to protect us. 

We watched news coverage of peaceful civil rights activists shot and killed, only to see their murderers walk free with the support of the Republican Party. We watched the leader of the “free world” defend white nationalist protestors saying there were “some very fine people on both sides.”, And like a dictator, the president used the military for a photo-op in a failed attempt to show us who was boss. 

How could this be happening? Why weren’t these police officers and murders of peaceful protestors being held accountable by the law for their actions? 

As minorities and allies of minorities we have been fighting for equality and acceptance for so long that, unlike those who have not, we know what’s at stake. It’s up to us now. 

Last week’s debate scared me. Seventeen minutes of one candidate’s lies and the other unable to complete sentences was all I could take before shutting it off and soothing my anxiety with a bit of Golden Girls and a half-full crystal martini glass I purchased from Mellwood Antiques, of a Black Manhattan––straight up. We’re in trouble, I thought as I imagined myself submerged in a pool of shit while breathing through a narrow paper straw that would inevitably collapse on itself. 

What was frightening to me about this debate, wasn’t that I don’t trust that President Biden and his team can’t do their jobs. Regardless of what people think, on paper, his administration has done more for this country than so many before him. I’m afraid that his poor performance lost the undecided voters we need to win this thing––a fear I wouldn’t have if more of the people who sit around and complain that the system doesn’t work for them would actually participate in said system and vote, while they still have that privilege.

Seventeen minutes is what it took to remind me how much I wished we had other candidates for president, but we don’t. So, I’m changing my mindset. 

I am not voting for a candidate who can’t complete a full sentence; I’m voting for the guy who will protect my marriage. The old man who will protect my brown skin from harm and prejudice, my freedom to read (and write) whatever I choose, and my sister’s right to healthcare without fear of prosecution. 

Most of all, I am voting for the guy who believes in saving our democracy. 

The idea of America is still that of an “American experiment,” and we must make it work. We need to educate our friends, family, and each other, and more importantly, we must show up for one another this November like we do at Pride, as we did during our marriage equality rallies, and as we do at Sunday brunch. 

This time, it won’t be about voting for who, but for what liberties we are wanting to protect. Seventeen minutes was all it took for the panic to set in and wake me. It’s time for action. There’s too much at stake.