Disillusionment Is The Beginning

The election is coming tomorrow and it’s just the beginning. The forces of division, greed and anger that Trump has aroused will not dissipate, whatever the result. Win, lose or delayed decision, Trump will continue to do everything in his power to stoke division and even violence. We must all vote and then peacefully, but with clear intention, do whatever is necessary to support the counting of all votes and the playing out of our legitimate democratic processes.

But it’s important to be clear-eyed about what we are dealing with. In a powerful op-ed piece in the New York Times last Friday, Don’t Fool Yourself: Trump Is Not an Aberration,  Jamelle Bouie eloquently points out that Trump’s Presidency, (‘the casual insults, the vulgar tweets, the open racism, the lying, the tacit support for dangerous extremists and admiration of foreign strongmen’) has only been possible because of pre-existing and still-existing currents in our American society. Bouie writes:

‘For as much as it seems that Donald Trump has changed something about the character of this country, the truth is he hasn’t. What is terrible about Trump is also terrible about the United States. Everything we’ve seen in the last four years — the nativism, the racism, the corruption, the wanton exploitation of the weak and unconcealed contempt for the vulnerable — is as much a part of the American story as our highest ideals and aspirations. The line to Trump runs through the whole of American history, from the white man’s democracy of Andrew Jackson to the populist racism of George Wallace, from native expropriation to Chinese exclusion.’

I often catch myself blaming Trump and the Republicans that have empowered him for disrupting the comfort and predictability of my privileged life. Trump has brought out into the open the forces of oppression, racism, sexism and nativism that, as Bouie says, ‘run through the whole of American history.’ But without these pre-existing currents, Trump would have remained a pretentious and self-congratulating con-man. Bouie goes on to say:

And to the extent that Americans feel a sense of loss about the Trump era, they should be grateful, because it means they’ve given up their illusions about what this country is, and what it is (and has been) capable of.

This reminds me of my sense of shock and disbelief in the days and weeks after Clinton’s loss four years ago. Trump seemed such a ridiculous mix of bluster, lying and fear-mongering, I couldn’t believe that people would actually vote for him. In the aftermath, I came to realize how unaware I had been of the depth and prevalence of the currents of dissatisfaction, alienation and fear in our country. Trump’s election four years ago proved that our country was not working for vast swaths of people who felt unseen, unheard and helpless in the face of the increasing cultural and economic changes of the times.

Over these past four years, I have continued to be shocked and disillusioned with our county. But much that has been hidden has come into the open. Trump’s anti-example has fueled the Women’s March and the unprecedented number of women entering politics, the MeTo movement which brought violence against women into the open, the Black Lives Matter actions that has brought awareness of systemic racism into our everyday conversations—all of this is a positive response to the loss of our comfortable status quo. The casually embedded inequities and violence of our vaunted ‘American Way of Life’ have been exposed for all to see.

These past four years have been painful for many of us and, in some way, necessary. Necessary because there is no other possibility—no other thing that could have happened, because this is what did happen. And necessary because only when we are willing to see and acknowledge the entrenched institutional inequities in our society can we begin to genuinely come together to move our nation toward its stated values and promises. Again I quote Bouie:

‘Perhaps more than most, Americans hold many illusions about the kind of nation in which we live in. We tell ourselves that we are the freest country in the world, that we have the best system of government, that we welcome all comers, that we are efficient and dynamic where the rest of the world is stagnant and dysfunctional. Some of those things have been true at some points in time, but none of them is true at this point in time.’

Whatever happens tomorrow is just the beginning. The fight is not really with Trump or even with the Republicans. It is a fight against disinformation, accusations and violence, wherever it occurs. We must stand up and be counted in the voting and after the voting to preserve and enhance our democratic forms of governance for the benefit of all. America IS an exceptional country. We were founded with soaring aspirations for a society of possibility. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the promises we have made to each other. Now we are called, as generations before us have been, to give our energies to make these promises true.