Yesterday, the day after the election, I started to write a long post about the election. I couldn’t get it right. Like many Americans, I was feeling anxious, sad, resigned, and worn out. To some degree, I still am. Record numbers of people have turned out to vote, and the talking heads on TV are already spinning the election as a win for democracy. Honestly, that’s a pretty low bar. In 1933 Germany, there was also extremely high voter turnout (89%) and the Nazi party, having only secured about 44% of the vote, retained power. Voter turnout alone is not a win and does not show that our democracy is healthy. It shows that people are passionate and deeply divided and want “their side” to win. It says nothing about being informed (a key element in a thriving democracy) or the need for civil discourse. There’s a funny meme circulating on Facebook that congratulates people for getting their I voted sticker and then undercuts it by saying a banana also gets a sticker… just for being a banana. There’s another one going around of a cartoon pole vaulter trying to vault a bar that is really low to the ground and the caption reads “America, we got this.” It’s all a bit disheartening.
The morning of Nov. 4 felt like a hangover. It felt eerily like the day after the election four years ago. I had gone to bed not knowing the results of the election. I slept poorly. I woke up disappointed. The state of this nation wears on me. Put simply, I want to quit – everything. I want to find a quiet beach and not think about politics, or supreme court justices, or an economic system that increasingly benefits a select few while leaving large swaths of people and families struggling to get by. I look around at the disparity between the haves and have-nots and say it shouldn’t be this hard for so many people. And sometimes, I get tired of thinking about that. Sometimes, I just want to be around people without worrying about the economy or the virus. I want to go to a concert. I want to be around friends. I want to have someone in my life that “gets me” on those most basic and deepest levels. For the past four years, I have tried to bring a level of calm and truth and authenticity in to my life. I have tried to seek out nuance and a better understanding of complexity only to find that the more I seek it out, the more I encounter what I can only describe as bravado, toxicity, and dishonesty. In the past two years, I’ve had two significant relationships, one professional and one personal, end poorly and abruptly. In both cases, I found my trust, along with some of my self-confidence, shaken. In both cases, there seemed to be a lack of self-awareness and accountability on the other side that poisoned the relationship (and a demonstrable pattern of that happening for them in the past).
This is what I find most disturbing about our election. All politics and policy aside, I am most disappointed in our country’s inability to see who we really are. We have a large portion of our population who aren’t just willing to overlook bad behavior, but seems to revel in it. Our president is not a decent human being. He has mocked the disabled, has belittled anyone who disagrees with him, has lied over 20,000 times. Over twenty women have accused the president of “unwanted sexual contact.” Countless business associates have accused him of fraud. His personal charitable foundation was disbanded because it misappropriated funds. The president has said vulgar and vile things like “grab them by the pussy” and “when you’re a star, they let you do it.” He’s boasted that he could shoot someone in the middle of fifth avenue and get away with it. He has denigrated our military troops, calling them losers. He uses derogatory, racist, and mocking language in calling his opponents monsters, Pocahontas, and nasty women. And yet, people support and adore him. The harsh reality is that this is who we are. We are a nation that doesn’t just tolerate racist and misogynistic talk and behavior, doesn’t just tolerate illegal business dealings, but we cheer it on, we boastfully wave its flag.
When I reflect on these things – my recent failed relationships in which I was full of hope and ultimately felt duped or our current political climate, I think of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye who views the adult world as being full of phonies… or perhaps on a deeper level, I think of Plato’s allegory of the cave in which what is perceived to be reality is really just shadows cast upon the wall. With these thoughts comes my hang-ups on having sense of moral superiority – in order to believe that I have a sense of reality, I have to assume that my perceptions are correct and other’s perceptions are wrong – or something like that. And honestly, it all gets exhausting. The daily struggle is to get up and believe that people are good. The daily struggle is to continue to search for authenticity both within myself and in others. The daily struggle is to seek out people who don’t swaddle themselves in their own righteousness, but are willing to see themselves as an imperfect piece of something imperfectly larger (a relationship, an organization, a community, a nation) and work to be better for the sake of others. The daily struggle is to not choose what seems like the more attractive option – ignore it all, drop out, sit in quiet awe of mountains or music or beach or forest and bathe in those things in life that seldom disappoint.