Most of you who are reading this don’t know me, but I want you to know I am furious that my daughter-in-law should be unwelcome or even feel unwelcome anywhere in this country.
I’ll extend that to her wonderful sisters and parents, and to my new granddaughter, who is too young to know about any of this, and to the rest of my diverse, extended family.
The discomfort, the fear described on her Brown Noise blog have heightened significantly since the victory of our new president-elect.
They are not entirely new feelings. I know this for a fact, because I heard about them long before the election, long before the latest campaign for president. They go back decades.
They don’t come out only in the rural Midwest, where the young family encountered the MAGA-themed McDonald’s ad described in that blog post. They can and do turn up anywhere.
The difference now is obvious and stark. Things are worse since the Republicans won. Bigots are out in the open, unashamed, and unafraid of the light.
I’m done being polite.
Damn the people who elected our soon to be pseudo-president, thereby emboldening his bigoted followers, and directly or indirectly contributing to this extra-toxic culture we now live in.
That is some harsh talk, coming from me. The people who elected him include some of my friends, acquaintances, and even family members.
They have disappointed me, and they need to know it.
First published on Medium, December 20, 2016
The Smith Compound 
I understand the anger and obvious share a lot of it. If someone harassed Chandani or, God forbid, Aashna,in public, my response would probably not be pretty. But I can’t help but think that to a considerable degree Trump support comes from a profound kind of naivete–“it can’t happen here,” “we have checks and balances,” “he won’t actually start a registry, or let Paul Ryan cut social security,” etc. I don’t know thatitlet’s anyone off the hook politically, but it does speak to how someone like Trump could get elected here. Everyone who thought that Trump couldn’t be that bad is about to get a big dose of how bad it can actually be.
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