The Belly of the Beast
In the still dark hours of the morning as I curled up in the fetal position listening to the sound of my heart pounding in my pillow, Rye, one of my beagles, stumbled off the bed, gagged a couple times, and threw up on the carpet. After a brief pause, he consumed what he had just coughed up. Unbeknownst to him, Rye had manifested the perfect metaphor for this moment in American history when voters, for some reason I’ll never understand, took the opportunity to re-elect a person that 154 presidential scholars from across the political spectrum unanimously agreed was the worst president in American history. And that was before the indictments, the convictions, and the Supreme Court ruling that presidents deserve near total immunity. It turns out we are going back. So yes, this was a bad morning. Really bad. It’s taking everything I’ve got not to puke on the carpet myself right now.
We certainly can’t say we weren’t warned about our options.
The AP summarizes just how weird and awful this moment is: “Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts … The victory validates his bare-knuckle approach to politics. He attacked his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, in deeply personal – often misogynistic and racist – terms as he pushed an apocalyptic picture of a country overrun by violent migrants. The coarse rhetoric, paired with an image of hypermasculinity, resonated with angry voters – particularly men – in a deeply polarized nation.”
When my mom was ten years old, she had a much worse morning. She was jarred awake by the sound of breaking glass on the ground floor of her family’s apartment. She lived through Kristallnacht, survived the Holocaust, moved to America, and has developed and funded college level courses to help people better understand the root causes of hate and genocide. This week, my family is taking my mom out for her 96th birthday. I’m convinced that one of the reasons America and other democracies are so susceptible to fascism is because those who experienced it firsthand are fewer and fewer in number. But we won’t talk about that at the birthday dinner. We’ll remind ourselves of the really important things in life and, I imagine, there will be a fair share of dark humor. And when the election comes up, I’m guessing my mom will say the same thing she always says at moments like this: We shall overcome. She means it. She’s proved it. She said it to me this morning on the phone. She also said there would better days ahead — but in fairness, she also joked, “Maybe buy a gun…”
Look, this was a sound beating. There’s no sugar-coating the fact that Americans said yes to the xenophobia, hate, and the punching down indecency at the very core of the Trump sales pitch. I’m not going to tell you not to feel angry, hopeless, or overwhelmed. I feel all of those emotions. But I will strongly suggest that you don’t let those emotions stick around for long. First, because they’re not good for your mental or physical health. And second, because those are the very feelings that fuel autocrats. I can’t stand the president-elect and his enablers, but I refuse to hate my fellow Americans. Doing so is simply feeding the beast. Divisiveness and hate are what got us into this mess. More of it is not going to get us out.
