Left of somewhere.
A letter to myself from November 2016
This is now the fifth time in over a week that I’ve sat down, sipped some coffee, put my fingers on a keyboard and tried to type words. I’d write a few sentence, some thoughts, and then a pause. As if subconsciously acknowledging my own internal struggle, I’d then open a browser, scroll through Facebook and slowly pull the Band-Aid off the wound I’ve been struggling to grapple with since we elected a neo-fascist as our president.
For over a week now I've been left with an inexplicable feeling. An emptiness. Maybe it’s some sort of disgust I haven’t experienced before. Whatever it is, it has been an emotional itch to which there is seemingly no way to scratch. I could probably spend a few thousand dollars in therapy figuring out exactly what the word is to describe it, but good scotch and bourbon are cheaper and more enjoyable, and I like to write.
I've tried many times now to sit down and put into words exactly what is going on in my head. Writing has always allowed me to express myself—a cathartic process for sure. It has always been about diving into a better understanding of myself. There’s a folder where I save these writings, hundreds of them over the course of the last decade. Some of them I share, others stay hidden away as an expression only unto myself.
This, this effort to put words to paper has presented an altogether unique challenge. Where does the deeply pragmatic optimist, socially progressive, anti-Trump republican go from here? I don’t mean literally. I know where my office is. I still remember the address to my house. I certainly knew where my polling place was on November 8th. It is however a profoundly philosophical question.
Were it not for this lingering pit in my stomach, I might be inclined to just bury this conflict and go about my day. Indeed, I’m rather good at compartmentalizing stress and emotions. Hell, those of us un/lucky enough to put the letters J.D. after our names basically have a degree in it. Juris Doctorate might as well be Latin for suppression of emotions. And don’t get me wrong, compartmentalizing in many ways is a necessary coping mechanism in today’s world. Recently though I’ve found compartmentalizing, the idea of trying to move forward as if nothing happened, only results in guilt. That’s certainly a first.
Perhaps that isn’t clear enough. Perhaps I’m being too passive in tone, and too abstract in my own thought. So let me be clear. Right now, at this very moment, continuing on with everyday life, continuing on like nothing has happened, like we all should go back to being conscripted cogs in the workday machine, is just unacceptable. At its most basic level, it feels very much like you are just turning your back to an impending tragedy; that you are saying goodbye to a loved one that you know damn well you will never see again.
It is difficult to listen to the optimistic pragmatist in me after the bizarro world we woke up to on November 9th. The snow globe wasn’t just shaken, it was shattered, drained of water and imitation snow, and is quickly being filled with rage, hate and dissonance. See your Facebook feed for an example.
I get it though. One half of this country mostly wanted to throw a brick through the window of the political elite. And throw a brick they did.
Is this an over simplification? Sure it is. But the disenfranchised people throwing the bricks regardless of the consequences are essentially who made the difference last Tuesday. Let’s not forget that most presidential elections essentially come down to winning over that swing vote—that segment of the population that makes up 5-10% of the electorate. That is who decides who runs this country. Did their voting bloc contain racist, xenophobic, sexist, neo-Nazi bigots? Yup, it sure did. Did it contain fundamentalist Christians hell bent on condemning us all, the Alt-Right and the KKK? Yup, them too. But none of these groups accurately represent 50% of the Country alone. So let’s agree to stop characterizing with a broad stroke everyone who cast a ballot for Trump on Tuesday as something they are not.
Unfortunately, what the brick throwers may not realize, is that by casting a vote against the system, that by shattering the window of the K street elite, you didn’t replace it with something better. You didn’t improve the system. You likely handed the keys over to an anti-intellectualism, quasi-authoritarian demagogue who preyed on the fears and utter worst of humanity. It is that underbelly of society that now feels emboldened and they are now driving the whole damn bus.
But it’s really about an economy that doesn’t work for the average person in America, right? Well my friends, history tells us that the road to hell is often paved with economics and the exploitation of the working class. Seriously, pick up any historical account of the rise of Nazi Germany. It’s about the economy stupid. It always is.
This is not meant to downplay that much of America has not felt the recovery from our most recent recession. They haven’t. Indeed, most of the recovery has been felt by the top 25% of income earners—the lobbyists, the attorneys, the doctors, the bankers, the folks running Wall Street—the elite. It is easy to see why so much vitriol is cast towards these people.
By all accounts though, I am likely (strike that) an elite. It’s strange perhaps, but I don’t say that with pride. I even wrote a qualifier in the first draft of that admission mostly because I struggle with that label. It is not where I come from. I grew up in rural America, with a very modest upbringing. I know what government cheese and peanut butter look and taste like. I’ve put them both on whatever the generic version of Wonder Bread is. Like most of America, my family worked hard, did their best to overcome adversity and centered a family around love. Even still, much of where I grew up is that part of America that hasn’t benefited from the recovery. The largest employer is a maximum-security prison and when the soviet-era nuclear military base closed, many fled the area in search of jobs.
Admittedly, I left that same area knowing full well that finding a career would be difficult if I stayed. I worked hard, went to school, played by the rules, got more than a few lucky breaks, made a living, started a life I’m proud of--all to now feel like the bad guy. To feel like I ended up on the wrong side of the fence. All the while knowing that had just one thing in my path altered slightly, I may have still been in that rural town. I may have been the one with a brick in my hand ready to throw it at the alternate universe of myself.
I’ve had my feet planted in both Americas. I have to this day lived somewhere between them. I shake the hands of the elite and I kiss the cheek of family many of which undoubtedly threw bricks on Tuesday. I’ve always embraced this juxtaposition and in many ways, I’ve always seen it as a great personal asset. But at this moment, it is a strange and surreal feeling to say the least.
I care deeply about politics. I care deeply about democracy. I care about the process, the details, the governing. I am a student of history and politics, and spend countless hours debating policy and political philosophy with my wife (even if she eventually tunes me out). And yet somehow over the last seven days I have felt like I’m supposed to be ashamed of that. Well, bullshit. I’m not going to apologize for believing in intellectual pragmatism. I’m not going to apologize for the empathy, understanding and compassion guiding my own philosophy.
Throughout all of this, one question cannot be avoided: where do the countless anti-Trump republicans go from here? Where does it leave a man without a country who feels like he’s being held in some sort of political purgatory? I don’t necessarily have an answer right now.
Until recently I considered myself a Rockefeller Republican—the socially progressive types that were once known to exist in the great Empire State. Libertarians without the crazy. As of Tuesday though there can be no doubt that the Republican crescendo resulting in the election of Trump has ended any tolerance which allowed me to be affiliated with this party. Make no mistake, there is no doubt in my mind that the Grand Old Party will say good riddance as myself and the other “RINOs” walk out of our local Board of Elections.
But as I finish writing this I’ve come to the realization that perhaps that’s all I needed; that amongst this wildly shifting political landscape and threat to the very fabric of democratic progress, that where I’ve landed, even if I don’t recognize it, is left of somewhere.
