ACROSS THE POND: Why this Black Isler is dreading the US election
I’ve tried to avoid thinking about the ‘E word’ for as long as I can. But across the pond, election fever has almost reached boiling point. You can’t ignore it. As much as I want to hide under a rock, you can’t go anywhere or do anything without being bombarded with garden signs or bumper stickers with ‘Vote such ’n such’ on them - something I still find odd to see. Apart from a few very vocal ‘Yes’ voters back home, I don’t really know the voting preferences of my friends. To me, voting is a private matter, and who you vote for won’t determine if we hang out or not.
Here it’s so different.
A few days ago I was driving to meet a friend for lunch, when my mind wandered to the election. Anxiety kicked in. Bad anxiety. My heart started pounding and I couldn’t catch my breath. A sweat broke out over my whole body. I wondered if the sweating was the perimenopause symptoms I’ve been having lately, but this time the familiar dull ache behind my eyes told me a migraine was on its way. Just at that moment my friend texted me to say he had car problems and couldn’t make it. I turned around, and just as I got to my front door the bright zigzaggy aura started.
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Yesterday, another migraine hit, preceded by high anxiety. It’s a pattern. In the six months before I emigrated I had seventy migraines, so I’m hoping the next few weeks will be kind to me.
It’s hard not to get swept up in the ‘other side being wrong/crazy/everything’s going to end if they get in’ spiel. I never thought I’d get like that, but somehow it’s happened.
What is terrifying is how close the numbers are. And how is that even possible? Trump, who’s clearly starting with dementia and increasingly rambling and incoherent, is frequently ‘sane-washed’ by the US media, (which I’ve lost all respect for). Very few people are calling it out which is concerning. If it was Joe Biden exhibiting the same symptoms, there’d be an outcry in every single paper in the land.
The source of most of my anxiety is Project 2025. If you’ve not had a peek at this truly horrifying Christian Nationalist manifesto, look it up. Oh, Trump has conveniently distanced himself from it when he saw the outrage it caused, but everyone in the country should be at least a little bit nervous if he actually gets back in.
It feels like America has gone skew-whiff. Families have been torn apart because of differing political views and conspiracy theories. There’s deeply saddening stories of people refusing government aid after Hurricane Helene because Trump said they’d lose their houses if they accepted help. It’s chaos. Now there’s lasers, ‘supposedly’ controlling the weather, sending those hurricanes directly to Florida just to wipe out Trump supporters. Then (legal) Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio. And I can’t believe I’ve actually typed out those last few sentences. It’s mind-boggling that people really believe all this.
Over the next while it’s going to be hard not to resort to copious amounts of Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut to get me through. People are not saying much, but look further and the fear is there. Now the familiar dullness behind my eyes is back and I need to go take something. It seems the next few weeks will not be kind to me after all.
Kerry Maciver hails from the Black Isle and now lives in California. She writes about being a Scot in the US. Read more of her columns here.
