The Election, Doom, and Something Constructive To Do
First, the headlines cause frustration; then, I look for what I can do; then, I realize that what I can do feels insignificant; and finally, numbness settles in.
This is the cycle I feel these days.
Months ago, a friend whom I’ll cite as EB wrote about “outrage fatigue”: the exhaustion felt over the incessant flow of shocking garbage said and done by powerful people.
I feel it strongly now, because my outrage lacks the agency to fix the problems.
So do I disengage? Impossible, because disengagement is a political act in itself. I’m in the mess and the mess is me. It is what it is. We are what we are.
Michelle Obama said “When they go low, we go high.” The problem is that they, Republicans, have been going low and still coming out on top. Trump has gotten confirmed about a quarter of all sitting federal judges (https://www.pewresearch.org/.../how-trump-compares-with.../). Polling in the “battleground” states shows a close race.
Does the moral high road pay off?
I believe the answer is yes, and yet Gallup reports that 43% of Americans approve of Trump’s work as president. (https://news.gallup.com/.../presidential-approval-ratings...) Despite the lying, the evidence of crimes, the damage to American institutions and international reputation, COVID, 43% of Americans are still down with Trump.
Going high works, eh?
White evangelical Christians, as of August, supported Trump’s performance by 72% (https://www.pewresearch.org/.../white-christians.../), this despite the chronic lying, encouragement of racist organizations, womanizing, putting kids in cages, cheating, etc. I can’t comprehend this. I know people in this demographic. I’ve asked them why they support Trump. I haven’t gotten a thorough answer, other than “his policies,” and “Trump has raised everyone up,” and “Christian issues.”
When I was an evangelical, “Christian issues” was code for abortion. Being “pro-life” meant being pro-birth. (Why the Republican obsession with birthing I’ll never know. I’ve seen a recent spate in my Facebook feed of random pictures of fetuses and newborns not related to the Facebook user.) To be clear, Republican policies show little regard for the life of fetuses and their mothers after delivery. And as some have rightly argued, being pro-death penalty (which Trump is, to wit: https://www.cnn.com/.../death-penalty-trump.../index.html) can’t by definition be compatible with “pro-life.”
But Republicans delivered on what evangelicals demanded. Under cover of darkness, a new justice to the Supreme Court was sworn in two nights ago who will probably vote for the government to interpose itself between a woman, her physician, and her body. And this is the party of “small government” and “personal freedom.” As I’ve written before, my marriage is also in the court’s hands, as well as my ability to do business free of discrimination.
Someone I know commented what a lesson in civics the swearing-in of Amy Coney Barrett was. “Indeed,” sneered I sardonically, “The culmination of what has been a fascinating four-year education.”
Forty-three percent of Americans approve of Trump, despite all the garbage done by him and his Republican enablers. And I fear that these voters may be distributed across the right states to give Trump a victory next Tuesday. And whatever deficits in votes there may be could be compensated for by tested Republican voter suppression techniques, the fascist militias “stand[ing] by” for Trump’s signal, or the Russians actively working today to get Trump re-elected. And now, with another Supreme Court justice, Trump has enough supporters on the court to steer election-related cases in his favor.
Being political cannot be avoided. But thinking about it all brings me down. I can’t change any of this. What will be will be. I voted. Trump may have the votes where they count. And so it is. I fantasize about being back in societies I’ve visited where I, as a foreigner, felt freer than here, where rational institutions and government were respected, and the elements of liberal democracies from the Enlightenment existed in purer form, preserved despite time passing, unlike here where they’ve mutated into something that feels sinister and foreboding.
Regardless of what happens next Tuesday, I remind myself that we have each other. We should love those around us, support and encourage one another, help out the needy, keep “going high” even when it doesn’t win, because in the end, it’s the right thing to do regardless of the outcome. In fact, doing good shouldn’t be transactional: Doing good is the point. Even though a historian, I can’t guarantee history will judge these miscreants. I lack agency here, too, as history’s verdict depends on future historians. Nonetheless, truth will be truth, and facts will be facts, even if some refuse to acknowledge them.
