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Current Events, Despair, election, Election Day 2018, Hope, Politics, Survival, Trump, USA
Carmen Herrara, Art in America
Recently, in a morbid mood, I told my husband that if the Democrats do not win back the House I would slit my throat.
I know, YIKES!
Even I was shocked by that imagery. But I remember grasping for something dire enough to describe how I felt. How such an outcome would signal the end of something I dearly love. How another two years of Trump unchecked would usher in “the end times,” the end of the United States as I know and love it.
And yet, I felt much the same way when President Bush won a second term, and I know Republicans felt that way when Obama won again. We each survived our defeats to fight over our differences once again, as we have down through the ages and will continue well into the future.
Our nation survived a Civil War, a Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, Hitler’s Holocaust, Vietnam, Watergate, 9-11, and the financial crash of 08. We will survive Trump, whether we win back the House or not.
And things will get better, as they always have in our strife to create a more perfect union.
Slowly over time we abolished slavery, gave women and Blacks the right to vote, ended child labor and won a 40-hour work week, desegregated schools and drinking fountains, ended the constant flow of litter beside our roadways, turned the yellow-smog skies of LA blue again.
Martin Luther King once said: ” The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice.”
Even emphasizing the LONG, and the achingly SLOW BEND, another two, or even six, years under Trump unchecked will not break us.
Or so I reassure myself. And steel myself for tomorrow: The Day After the Election.
Will there be a great Sigh of Blue Relief? Or a great Cry of Blue Despair?
Either way, the slow, sure bend toward the promise our Nation stands for will continue.
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While I generally try to be optimistic….I suppose the nation survived 08, but many people and families essentially did not…many do not work a 40 hour work week, and education remains unequal. The arc of history may bend toward justice, but I’m not sure that is true for any particular country. Any country can lose democracy. I don’t feel this is comparable to when Bush won again, or Obama.
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I hear you, Valorie, and I agree that any county can lose democracy, and what Trump is trying to do is alarming.
But I remember how I felt when Bush was in power and how afraid I was for our country then and the direction it was moving, which also seemed a dangerous turn toward fascism. But I still see the consequences of his time in office as more dire and catastrophic than anything Trump has done so far: missing the intelligence that led to 9/11, lying about WMD in order to start a war in Iraq which killed millions of innocent people , both ours and theirs; giving the rich a tax break while refusing to pay for his war and tripling the deficit, then rolling back the regulations that led to the financial crash of 08. His second term did feel like the end of the US as we love and know it.
And yet Obama was elected and helped restore the sense of decency and sanity we needed and set us on an upward course which did made gains in healthcare that will not be overturned, no matter how much the GOP tries. We are winning that war.
The arc of HISTORY, human moral progress, is still bending toward justice, despite the temporary upsets and backsliding. But that doesn’t mean we lessen our vigilence or turn a blind eye toward new threats. It just means that for all the setbacks and challenges, there is hope our better angels will prevail. And I believe the arc of history bears that out. Giving in to despair, which I had to fight against with Bush and now with Trump, helps no one and hurts our cause. That’s what I want to avoid, and what all of us must fight against.
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Midterms were big this time around. On our way out of town for our week vacay in Chicago, we stood in line for almost 2 hours to cast our votes. We were mostly interested in the governor race http://laurabrunolilly.com/governor-mcmaster-you-should-be-ashamed/
Fully knowing in this state, it wouldn’t change a thing (sigh) but at least I/we maintained a sense of self-respect and can stand tall, in good conscience, that we spoke our mind through the ballot box. Turns out, in our county, ‘our’ candidate lost only by some 350 votes…so ours did ‘count’!
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