Why We Must Vote for Love Not Fear in the Midterms

By Reverend Rachel Kessler

I found out I was pregnant with my second child the week Donald Trump was inaugurated as President. It was also the week I finally decided to read The Handmaid’s Tale (I sometimes make poor life choices).

Like so many people, I spent the weeks leading up to Trump’s presidency overwhelmed by fears I could not fully articulate. Would we find ourselves plunged into an all-encompassing war? Hardly a passing fear as December 2016 saw our president-elect taunting Russia about the size of our nuclear arsenal. How would our environment withstand legislation drafted to benefit the titans of the fossil fuel industry? What would be the fate of same-gender couples who had just won the right to marry? Would immigrant communities find families torn apart as the new administration intensified deportation of those who are undocumented?

To all these fears, yet to be realized, I added fears for a child who would be born into a world of so much uncertainty. What would that world possibly be like for him?

Now, as we draw towards the midterm elections we have been awaiting for 24 long months, that little boy has just passed his first birthday. His personality has manifested itself in ways I could not have imagined when all I knew was that strip of pink on a pregnancy test. He…