'Broad City' Alum Ilana Glazer: 'As a Queer Jewish Mama, I'm Gonna Be Patriotic as Hell' This November

Madeline Kim Ilana Glazer with her child

As a queer Jewish mama, I'll be voting for the health and safety of myself and my fellow Americans in the midterms on Nov. 8.

Most Americans, Democrat or Republican, want the same thing — a country that is the most safe for the most people. But what we're dealing with now is not Democrats vs. Republicans. We're dealing with far-right extremists, and it's not normal.

The far-right represents so few in this country of more than 300 million people, yet they have found ways to control our future — and are aiming for more power this November. They are keeping our children exposed to weekly gun murders in school by voting against creating basic rules around gun safety. This same group is legislating against addressing the climate emergency, against women's power over their own bodies, against queer people's safety, against Black and brown families' safety.

Politically speaking, I'm progressive. I want affordable healthcare available to my fellow Americans; I want to acknowledge American history and the violent roots of how our country was born; I want pregnant people to decide privately with their doctors about their own bodies; I want queer people to live in safety and get married if they want to; I want common-sense gun laws in place to prevent the persistent gun violence in schools, grocery stores, churches, July 4th parades, and any other formerly ideal American location you can name that's been marred by public gun murder. I guess that's progressive? But in my body, it simply feels like I believe in basic human rights.

Madeline Kim Ilana Glazer

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The far-right lies to dehumanize folks — people who are Black, brown, queer, immigrants, or female — so that it's easier to legislate against their rights. They take nuanced issues and reduce them into black and white in order to divide Americans. For example, the issue of critical race theory: this has more layers than the alt-right can hold, so they reduce it into being "for" or "against" it so that Americans split into something like football teams playing against each other.

But we, as a country, have the emotional intelligence to approach tough conversations with respect and grow from them. Extremist discourse minimizes us. It attempts to keep the phenomenal variations of America's population oversimplified and controllable, to retain power over all the beautiful shades of our people — Black, brown, queer, female, male, trans, non-binary, immigrant and family-centered. These Americans deserve equality and the fierce protection of their basic human rights, and right now, those rights have to be voted for.

A tiny group of people who have power don't want you to vote. Democracy is their enemy because it gives YOU the power. Democracy is America's core value. I'm a proud American mom, so I'm gonna go be patriotic as hell and vote like my life depends on it because — you guessed it — it does.

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