Here's something you can do if you care about other people

Yes, you might feel self-conscious. So what?

I wasn’t going to write this.

I wasn’t going to address the US election because I don’t live there and I’m fed up of hearing people’s reheated 2016 reassurances and I also don’t want to sink into despair, although it’s certainly warranted.

If you talk to Americans, it seems like they’re either convinced the world will end or that a second Trump presidency won’t affect them and depending on their particular circumstances, they might be right.

During this febrile election cycle, so many people on social media put forward passionate arguments about who you should vote for and why.

I found it disconcerting how many actors and podcasters and writers I follow(ed) argued that the eventual outcome had to be prevented at all costs, while brushing over why someone might not feel able to vote blue, even strategically.

I cringed every time they posted that the most important issue was reproductive healthcare and that everyone had to vote for Kamala Harris to protect it.

I didn’t see any of those same actors and podcasters and writers post about the thousands of children that Israel has bombed and shot and starved to death. About the women in Palestine who needed and couldn’t access abortions, or who were forced to suffer life-threatening miscarriages under the most horrific conditions.

Even though America has provided most of Israel’s ammunition, I’ve seen no concerted feminist effort to protest the harm caused in taxpayers’ names.

Instead, it seemed like Harris supporters cared more about making childless cat lady jokes than pressurising their preferred candidate to change her platform. (This is what so much of mainstream feminism has become, btw — cheerleading for high heel-wearing neoliberals in the name of faux-empowerment. Pass.)

I understand pragmatism and of course Donald Trump is a walking disaster but the Democrats had an opportunity to do more than be the least worst option, and they bungled it.

Increasingly, the only insights that made sense to me were from Palestinians and anarchists and multiply-marginalised people who made the very compelling point that electoral politics are not, contrary to what we’re told, the solution to all (or maybe any) of our problems.

The same people often suggested that community care was more helpful and hopeful and something we should all turn to because no matter who won, there would be little to celebrate.

Since the result, I’ve seen plenty of people post messages supporting that sentiment.

I’ve also seen a lot of activists suggest that there’s one simple trick everyone can do if they’re serious about caring for other people.

One action we can all take to potentially save lives and make disabled people’s existences easier.

If you don’t do it already, you’re probably not going to want to start. But you still could. It’s very simple. You’ve done it before. You can do it again.

You should wear a mask.

If you’re not masking now, I’m not going to try to guilt you or blame you: I understand that the pull towards social cohesion is strong, perhaps overpowering.

I’m sure I have my own areas of ignorance and the fact that I know and care about this is more to do with the fact that it affects me personally than any in-built moral superiority.

I don’t think I’m better than you.

I do know what a post-viral illness is like, how it ruins your world and no concert or meal out or holiday could ever be worth what you lose.

I also know it might seem impossible, given the extent to which the public and the media and the government appear to have moved on, but Covid isn’t over and no one said it was.

The director of the World Health Organisation said that the pandemic’s emergency phase was over but he also said that Covid continued to pose a serious threat and that “hundreds of millions of people would need longer-term care” as a result of its complications, a warning few seem to have heeded.

Covid is still killing people who didn’t want to die, while Long Covid is decimating lives.

If disabled people get it, it could end us, and many of us can’t mask or tolerate vaccinations, meaning we have to live sheltered lonely lives on the margins of society — a fate most right-thinking, left-leaning people claim not to want for us.

No one is suggesting that you have to stay home, to shield, to never enjoy yourself again.

What I am saying is that wearing a mask could achieve many things that, if you’re disappointed by Trump’s victory, you might purport to want.

It allows you to be socially conscious, to model desirable behaviour for others, to stop the spread of a deadly pathogen to people you know (hi) and those you don’t.

The kind of good quality mask you need is a N95/PPF2 or better, and I get that there’s some financial investment involved but mask blocs exist and providing you don’t get them wet, they can be worn and re-worn until they’re wet or dirty or the straps break.

You could start small, at medical appointments, which are the one place most disabled people can’t avoid, and then maybe try shops, use a sip valve in bars and cinemas, eat meals on outside patios instead of inside. (It’s why god made heat lamps.)

Even if you’re not in the US, supporting disabled people’s right to exist sets an example and sends a message, both of which will be more important than ever as right wingers have a mandate to stigmatise both masks and disabled lives.

(All of this is without addressing the potential bird flu pandemic we could be facing.)

If that seems too much, too hard, too unreasonable, maybe just think about it, ask yourself whether your actions match your values and if not, how you might bring them closer together.

We have some choices. We have some agency.

Voting is never going to be enough.