The Day After

I woke up that morning and the first thing I saw on my phone was a message from my daughter saying she had searched FB 'feelings' for 'despondent' and could not find the emoji for that. I lay there in bed, trying to absorb the fact that the unthinkable had actually happened. I even said that I did not want to hear the analysis of the election, or hear the inevitable speeches. I did not want to see any of the players, or candidates, or talking heads, or correspondents, or voters. I just wanted to be quiet and not have to engage with the chaos around me.

I spent most of the day doing just that. We had breakfast; I read some of my book (fiction, totally escapist); we walked down to the river and toured the tall ship that arrived here last night.  JC and I stood on the wharf and listened to what Hillary had to say to the people who had worked for her--we'd missed her concession speech. She showed class--as might be expected.

And now it's time to look the future in the eye. Inexplicably, people have made their choice and we have to live with it for four years. The country has stood for 240 years; surely we can last 4 more. There are all kinds of cliches to throw out there: what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, and stuff of that ilk. It doesn't really help. The hardest thing to deal with is the fact that there is so much brokenness in our country right now, and I'm not sure we know how to fix it. Trump isn't going to do that for us. It's up to us.

How do you gather up and neutralize all the anger and hate that elected Trump and rejected Hillary? There have been so many lies told and accusations made that I don't see how that web can be unraveled and we can all come together again. The American public has lashed out in every direction, like a maddened bull in the ring; in its confusion, it has attacked Hillary, Obama, women, Muslims, immigrants, Congress--any leader or group or institution in its path. Trump has been the matador, waving all the red flags.

We all know that those bulls in the ring die. We are, however, better than that. Given a common antagonist, even the bull-headed Congress we've experienced in the past 8 years may see fit to work together with their Democratic counterparts to thwart the death knell that Trump seemed intent upon ringing. Maybe, faced with threats to all we hold dear, we will reclaim our better selves and make room for the disaffected at the table, and think more seriously about how to put our lives back together, to reconcile our differences, and return to the government of the people, by the people, and for the people that Lincoln spoke of in the midst of another bloody period of divisiveness.

Things are much more complicated now. We are tied in knots not only because of domestic division,  but over financial effects, short and long-term; over our place in the world's uncertain economic and political spheres; over nuclear codes; and rampant conflicts in the Middle East and beyond. And we find ourselves being led by an unpredictable and quick-tempered man whose 'truth' depends on circumstance and his own convenience. Whose associates do not exactly inspire confidence, He comes with baggage, both personal and legal, and it is hard to put that all aside and offer support when we are so very much afraid of what this presidency will mean for the world, for us, and for all the people who have listened to and believed the vile and vituperative outpourings of his campaign.

Donald Trump is not the complete problem, however. He is just the most visible symptom of something deeper and darker: the image of America that we keep pushing back into our personal Pandora's box: an America that embraces prejudice and racism and intolerance, that closes its doors and its borders and its heart to those in need, that feels entitled to step on the weak in pursuit of personal gain. This is not who we are, or at least not the country we set out to be. This dystopian image is everything we have fought against for the past 240 years. We cannot give up now. We cannot turn our back on the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
the wretched refuse of other teeming shores.

We cannot roll up the welcome mat in New York harbor, and add conditions to those freedoms and opportunities we purport to extend to everyone: yes, you have rights, IF you are white, if you practice an acceptable religion, if you check the correct box under 'gender'. Yes, you can have medical care, and housing, and food--if you can afford it. That is not the people we aspire to be. We have lost our way, and the way home is not readily apparent. What we do know is that it does not involve imposing limitations on immigrants, religious freedom, or women's rights--limitations that would be giant steps backward in the journey that started here two hundred and forty years ago.