Day 3

I’m currently on the third day of my self-imposed news exile – although I admit I did learn a few tidbits talking to my son on the phone last night. I know it’s a form of denial that I can’t engage in forever, but it’s a necessary form of self-care for me at this moment.

Most immediately, I don’t want to hear any finger-pointing or scapegoating of individuals or organizations. Of course, no campaign is perfect and we can all engage in after-the-fact criticism. But the Harris-Walz ticket was highly qualified, competent, hard-working, engaging, forward-looking, democracy-loving, people-oriented, and inspirational. The fact that our citizenry chose an incompetent, divisive, unethical, criminal, authoritarian blowhard as the leader of our nation over Harris-Walz indicates to me there are more disturbing and pernicious underlying factors to blame. Of course, as is always the case with scapegoating, it’s much easier to blame a person or group than to delve into the true underlying causes. Scapegoating absolves us from responsibility; delving deeper is much more fraught with uncertainty, complexity, and fear of failure.

But as I need to find some way to go forward in a hopeful and productive way, focusing on the bigger picture is all I can think to do at the moment. It doesn’t solve our immediate problems, but it seems we are called to do some deeper digging in response to where we find ourselves in late 2024. I’m not going to spend the coming years listening to an endless cascade of “Can you believe what Trump said and did today? It’s truly awful.” We don’t even have the hopeful prospect this time that we will be able to investigate, 25^th amendment, or impeach ourselves out of this nightmare agenda of tearing down our institutions and our people.

So, some thoughts moving towards a more constructive approach… These are not new and they are very daunting, dare I say pie-in-the-sky-level daunting. But it seems a better future for our country and all its citizens would include:

• Respecting and supporting each other across groups by gender, skin color, country of origin, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, political group, etc.
  • None of these groups are superior to others in terms of their entitlement to civil rights, including the freedom to pursue a safe and self-determining existence.
• Understanding that living your religious beliefs is a right, but imposing those beliefs on others is not – because then they’ve lost a correspondingly sacred right.
• Respecting expertise and the best available evidence on a given issue.
• Seeking out information that comports with reality.
• Advocating for one’s own interests by seeking agency rather than by scapegoating other groups (e.g., women, ethnic groups, immigrants).
• Respecting all workers as important contributors to our economy and no longer revering money and status at all costs (e.g., the environment, worker well-being).
• Understanding that we don’t live in a zero sum world. A rising tide lifts all boats, as some very wise people have said.