Greetings,
I just got off the phone with Hillary Clinton. She called to thank me for my support and to encourage me, after I rested and recouped from the disappointment of this election, to stay engaged in issues that matter to me. She stressed the importance to continue to work on gun control, LGBT rights, Citizens United, the environment, student loans, energy, global warming, women's equality, or any other issue that was supported in her campaign. Now, it wasn't a private call just to me, but rather an outreach to her many supporters and volunteers. When I hung up I put my head on my desk and wept. I wept for her loss and I wept for Trump's win, I wept for America and for the entire world.
It was at that moment I realized that I was going through the 5 stages of grief. First, Denial, when I sat November 8
th in stunned shock and couldn't believe it was true; maybe it was a dream or an alternate reality. Next was Anger, which was directed to all the people who could be so stupid as to take our country down this dangerous path. Then came Bargaining, which went something like if Bernie had run he would have won, or if only Elizabeth Warren had been the Vice Presidential candidate, or maybe Trump's not as bad as he seems. Soon after came Depression, a combination of hopelessness and loss. The final stage is Acceptance, which I won't arrive at before Inauguration Day on January 20th, if ever. I suspect many of you have been going through similar feelings.
This election had mythic significance. As a lover of myth I compared Trump to Voldemort, but just as easily could have used Darth Vader. I smiled when I got this Star Wars reference. But as I thought about it I realized that turning this election into an
archetypal battle between good and evil doesn't address the reality and complexity of the event. If Trump is the evil Voldemort then his millions of followers are the evil Death Eaters. Or if Trump is Darth Vader then his followers are the evil Storm Troopers. But when I look at the Trump voters I know they are not evil and they don't deserve my blanket rejection. We all know people who voted for Trump - a brother, father, coworker or friend. And they are not evil. To scapegoat the rural white voter is no better than scapegoating Muslims.
I realized that if I see everything in stark terms of black and white then I am doing what Trump has encouraged us to do - divide the world into Us versus Them and seek simple solutions for complex problems. The results of this election are more nuanced than that. I thought that the words of Obama in 2008 of "No one can deny the voices of millions of people calling for change" could also explain Trump's win. So I decided to try to understand why so many people voted for him and get a sense of what they hope for. I would need to understand this if I wanted to start to heal the division that erupted in this election.
After much pondering I realize that there are millions of Americans who are afraid that their identity, safety, and lifestyle are falling apart and disappearing. They look around at closed factories, lost jobs, vacant Main Streets, crumbling communities, drug addiction, and children who are lost to them in a digital maze. They feel that the institutions they depended on have abandoned them. There are economic insecurities, especially after the great recession of 2007-2009 caused by irresponsible banks and subprime mortgages. The banks not only failed them, but actually took advantage by getting them in greater debt then they could afford. And though America has largely recovered from that downfall, the rising stock market over the last 4 years means nothing to people with no equity, investments or savings. There is a sense of being left out of the economic increase. Corporations, factories and businesses are no longer a committed partner to a strong local community by bringing in jobs, health care, and pride to help America grow. Instead corporations are massive global industries that move operations out of the country for cheap labor and regulations where they pay more attention to providing strong returns for their stockholders. Churches, which were the backbone of community are in decline, caught up in scandal or use the teaching of Christ as a political stick to beat social issues of gay marriage, abortion, and LGBT rights. Technology has stolen jobs as banks tellers, grocery clerks, cashiers and now even drivers, become unnecessary. Environmental regulations have shuttered coal production and fracking has polluted their wells and water. No wonder there is despair.
It is much easier to seek simple explanations for the loss of all they have known and the sense of being left behind and not getting their fair share. It is easier to blame Muslims, Mexicans, and immigrants than to look at the fact that in the last 20 years changes in America have been happening at such a dizzying speed than we have been thrown off balance. I think of the 1919 poem by William Butler Yeats:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
I do not want my grief and my tears to keep me from seeing the truth. And the truth is that we are in perilous times, more perilous than I thought or wished to acknowledge. And I don't think having bitterness in defeat will help. I feel compassion for all those people who were concerned about the crumbing structure of their own reality and who
believed the lies of a carnival con man because at least that was something to believe in. And I have concern for those same millions who will feel abandoned one more time when Trump's policies run roughshod over his promises. This beautiful song,
Don't Give Up, by Peter Gabriel with Kate Bush sheds some light on the hopelessness many feel and might touch a cord of empathy and compassion that can bring a healing balm. Maybe we can come together, find a way to heal the division, find a way to heal the nation, find a way to repair this world. We are stronger together, and that doesn't stop being true just because the campaign is over.
Lilan
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