Donald Trump is a proven liar, fraudster, sex assaulter, top-secrets divulger, and is likely a foreign agent. This declining and feckless creep cares about nothing but his money. I’d offer my condolences to U.S. citizens, but 47 is the president of Puerto Rico too. And we don’t get to vote against the motherfucker, or any other president of here too. And here ends the pity party portion of this post.

For the last six years I’ve been hearing a lot “live in the present, be in the moment.” Well, scrolling through the web gets you war, escalation risks, children killed daily, retaliations merely for saying “Palestine”, hunger, ghastly injustices in the name of presidential immunity, climate catastrophes, Kelce omnipresence… All of those distressing phenomena are certainly around and make up much of our world. But how much of that is actually “present” in our lives?

Our everyday lives occur in communities: where we live and work and hang out, along with our families and other personal relations. In these communities we are all vested, merely by being in proximity with each other. That, for me, is the real present, how we carry ourselves daily in our communities. And in those communities is where we can effectively exert our convictions and also extend our sympathies and compassion. Yes, compassion. It’s a radical concept in light of the recent electoral victors.

The Puerto Rico elections were held yesterday. All our governments have been of two parties: the pro-statehood blue (PNP) and the red status-quo party. Yesterday, I worked as coordinator for the local independence party (PIP) at the voting stations behind my apartment. I’ve been a pipiolo all my life, and their electoral victories have been as plentiful as Titans Super Bowl rings. BUT! For these elections, my candidate had been rising steadily in the polls since January of this year. He, Juan Dalmau, was the only contender against the pro-Trump PNP candidate. The trash island swipe did not faze our now-elected governor’s support of Trump.

The platform was simple—clean government (both ruling parties have scores of corruption convictions); improving electricity services (kick out the current operator, brought on by both ruling parties), and independence was not at issue in this election: Puerto Ricans would be able to vote on the issue after an agreement with Congress, the sole entity with the government power to determine Puerto Rico’s status. On Sunday I went to the closing rally, which respectable estimates put attendance at over 50,000. Unimaginable for a party that struggled to reach 5% in almost every election. Having been to that immense rally is a memory that still shakes me deeply.

The front runner PNP’s closing had a tad over 8,000—and that’s after forcing PNP public employees to attend. And the campaign was vicious; Dalmau is comunista, there will be no more federal funds, PR would become an independent Cuba / Venezuela failed state just by winning the election… In the last days before the elections, it was revealed that at least two prominent employers wrote to their employees to urge them to vote against Dalmau. Normally I don’f shit-talk fellow Puerto Ricans in non-boricua company. Yet, some stuff is plain wrong everywhere. Unlike in sports fandom, the “He’s an asshole, but he’s my team’s asshole” is intellectually dishonest for anyone interested in actual progress, whether in a country or society.

I knew that Dalmau was not going to win in the polling place I worked yesterday. Whatever; I was happy to help electors vote however they wanted. Definitely enjoyed trying to keep things light with neighbors I’ve never met who each spent at least 90 minutes waiting. Not knowing them, nor wanting to preen into their leanings, I had to resort to lame cracks about their names and electoral numbers (“4426799! Man, just stick a 787 in front and it’s a towing service”). Sure, there were a couple of dustups, but we poll workers remained intent on our job: getting folks to vote as soon as possible and have their vote counted. There were lines all day, all day, by far the highest participation I’ve seen. (This was the 5th election I worked.)

Getting the results was a downer, but I can claim a win. There was a poll worker, from a different party, who remained in game-face all day, very serious. While we were doing our final work by 10:15 PM, I told every poll worker there: “Please, let’s focus and finish this. I gotta get home and cry in private.” That poll worker cracked up hysterically. We also took a group selfie of most of us poll workers, and I came out not-that fat. Hey, another win!

If you believe in democracy, then you gotta accept election results. This of course did not apply to Trump in 2020, but the fucker even won the popular vote in 2024. Why, what compels folks to vote for the most dishonest man in the U.S.?! asks the rest of the world.

Anyway, voting ended and that’s that. Reality cannot come with a bigger thud. And as with the U.S., PR can look ahead to a local government of deception and toxic policies flowing from the absolute crapulence at the very top. That’s my opinion, not speaking here for anybody else. But if you share a similar repugnance, hey: your convictions become even more important in the face of crooked governance, even in jobs. That’s where your values are tested; if you break them, perhaps those weren’t values after all. Besides, there’s no such thing as worthwhile but complacent convictions, I think.

An election is for putting candidates in jobs, not a referendum of your values. Being decent, or striving to be, is more necessary now. Hell, decency is downright revolutionary in light of our elected leaders’ complete lack of ethics.

Something about Dalmau: four weeks before the election, his wife suffered a stroke and was taken immediately to intensive care, where she remained 20-odd days and went through several procedures. Immediately, Dalmau called off all public appearances to be with his family and stayed off all media. There were no selfies, no intensive care TikToks, no press releases: just nothing. Once his wife was cleared, Dalmau rejoined the campaign, 9 days before the election. In the interim, PNP supporters started the heavily memed rumour that the candidate had a mistress, that (1) caused his wife’s stroke, or (2) the “stroke” was a publicity stunt to hide marital strife. I don’t care if this badmouths boricuas because it’s the fucking lowest of the low and I hate how ideology can strip every worthwhile fiber of humanity from some people. Perhaps some of them were my neighbors, I don’t know. The fervor is there though, plainly.

The most worthwhile stuff we can do is within our families and communities. It’s where doing the right thing can count: you have to mingle and communicate with these people, for better or worse. And doing the right thing—well, this used to be basic ethics, but now who the fuck knows what. So, for me, these are right thing stuffs: helping the needy, feeding the hungry, supporting women’s rights, adopting anti-racist attitudes, having a baseline of respect for other persons no matter if they have a sexual orientation beyond your comprehension… Basically, being understanding about folks who do not have your life, your circumstances, your opinions, and your fashion sense. Everyone is different. All we can do is try to have principles, unlike the crud atop government.