In one week, the election will be over. Either way.
I do not believe Donald John Trump, a person who chose to disregard the outcome of our elections, will win. I do not believe this individual who chose to attack our government and who has only been allowed to run due to the cowardice, capitulation, and incalcitrance of our judiciary, will succeed in taking over the presidency. I do not think a man who demands fealty and threatens critics with violence and imprisonment deserves our respect. I do not believe that to be the end result from the many Americans I have met and talked with. And yet I am prepared for that outcome.
I am a writer, I write words. Maybe I will be made to eat those words. What happens to me is of no consequence. Men like Trump, small men with shallow thoughts, will always be around to stroke our worst insecurities and feed our hatred, suffering, division, and doubt. I don’t worry about Trump because I see him as a metastasization of a much deeper affliction.
I come from a Biblical tradition; there are many passages in the Bible that talk about how ‘the peoples’ hearts were hardened.’ As a kid, I found this to be confusing to me, it seemed to me to be obvious there were right and virtuous actions and there were selfish and mean-spirited actions. As an adult, I see now that cynicism is like a plague, a disease that eats away at the foundations of our own morality, we accept a little and a little more, and slowly we find ourselves slumping inward as the rot takes hold on what we consider just, the kind of thing people excuse as “the new normal.”
It began 40 years ago when we decided that it was more important to look at empty office skyscrapers, the kind that men like Trump affix their names on, rather than looking at people living in the street in the face. That problem has only gotten worse. It is the same sickness I saw a few years ago in photos of Texas on a very cold night when a skyline was lit while less fortunate neighborhoods were unlit. Not long ago I heard a song by a band called Chat Pile called “Why.” It is not a happy song and it’s not supposed to be, it asks a question of why we accept this injustice. I didn’t have an answer when I heard it but I understand now.
About the same time as we start getting sick as a country, one leader stood up and told us we needed to make hard choices but we would be a better nation and have a brighter future, another told us we were a ‘shining city on a hill,’ promised we would be great, and we didn’t need to change at all. We have taken those latter words to heart for a generation, and the end result is Trump, who doesn’t promise anything except endless grievances and the people he will harm. For a few people on the planet this timeframe has succeeded beyond measure, they’ve become absurdly wealthy, untethered from consequence; many of us run in place (or worse) for them to have that privilege.
I grew up in the military, I am an “Army brat.” it is a contract where people literally sign their life away -- but for many families, they sign because they are poor and have no choice and it offers one of the few ways for them to do better for themselves. I have met families from the Five Boroughs, I’ve met families from Watts and Compton in South Central L.A., I have met families from Arkansas and Arizona, Louisiana and Montana. I’ve met families of first generation immigrants who chose a path of service to a country they’d only just adopted. Many families like mine would be framed as the generationally poor, part of a “Hillbilly elegy” by a certain politician -- my Dad was the first one in his immediate family to leave his county in rural Ohio. This life experience taught me how different people from disparate backgrounds can live side-by-side with dignity and respect, and work together to achieve a common purpose.
Like many military families, my family was stationed overseas, I learned a lot about the world. Maybe 20 years ago, as an adult, I came to the realization there was a lot of my own country I hadn’t seen. I set about to make that right. I’ve seen everything but three states, I’ll let you guess which ones those are. I’ve seen wind-swept vistas and dusty mesas, deep woods and islands stretching out on the horizon. More than anything though, I’ve talked with and listened to people in all the places I’ve visited, tried to hear their stories, understand what they love about their hometown, city, or neighborhood. I’ve been rewarded by the richness and depth of the American people and the experiences we share.
What I learned from my childhood and what I’ve learned as an adult is the Americans I have met are guided by decency, compassion, and honesty -- people who fundamentally disagree with being shouted over, threatened, or misled by strawmen, false equivalencies, and toxic outrage. We are stronger, individually and together, when we build trust in each other and build each other up, when we learn from our mistakes, when we find ways to help those around us, when no one is too rich or powerful to be measured beyond responsibility. We should look at the challenges we face with optimism and opportunity -- not fear, contempt, and doubt.
None of this is easy, it’s so much easier to break things and then complain about them being broken, but one thing I know very well about Americans is when we set our minds to a task, we also don’t give up easily either. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” but that’s not the whole picture, it’s actually a deliberate choice we all face, probably the most important one in my lifetime. If we don’t treat the cynicism inside us, it will consume us. We each have to open our eyes and the fever will break.