DEALING WITH THE ELECTION
One week until the election and like so many people I can’t understand how America can be so divided. Support for Donald Trump, who seems obviously so unfit to be President and who seems from my perspective to be entirely self centered, consumed with grievance and interested only in retribution, makes no sense from my perspective and yet half of America seems to idolize him and see him as a savior from threats to America which he and they see everywhere.
So for myself, and probably in theory only since I probably won’t do anything, I am going over my options of what to do after the election if Trump wins
1. Stand and fight. My tribe against that tribe. Losing the election is just the beginning of the battle. That is what Trump is encouraging his followers to do, by building up rage and by insisting that a loss is not a loss but is caused by cheating by the liberals. But come to think of it, that is what liberals are doing by accusing Trump of being a fascist and a would be dictator out to destroy democracy. If he wins, liberals feel, the election result comes from Trump being a demagogue and fraudulently promising things he will never achieve. In the face of his fraud, anything we can do to oppose him is justified. Of course this desire to fight and win leads to full polarization which leads to wanting to wipe out the other side. It leads to some sort of civil war from either perspective.
2. Retreat and ignore the results of the election. It is someone else’s problem, I’m no longer involved. I have voted and contributed money and spoken out. Now it is someone else’s problem to worry about. I can retreat to the woods and hole up and ignore what is happening. I am an old man on the cusp of death, I’ll just let it go.
3. Escape. I could just go to another country and leave the tension and violence behind. There are plenty of articles on line with suggestions of places to escape to. I could leave my home and family behind, staying in touch with them on Facetime, or escape for a good part of the year and just come back for brief visits on Thanksgiving and Christmas. (This is of course what so many Americans are furious at immigrants from violent countries for doing when they escape here to the USA.)
4. You (I) can bear the results of the election about which you can do nothing and turn to whatever makes you feel fully alive, family or church or making music or helping your neighbor. Huge numbers of people in the world live under dictatorships, unable or unwilling to escape, with the only option being to live privately and silently in ways that are fully alive for them. It could be that you can live within a community that encourages you to do what makes you feel most alive. You can then ignore the rest of the country, which many of us do already.
5. Let go of your tribe. Step out of the polarization that we are caught in and realize you were born here by accident and have had little to do with the polarization that is happening. Disassociate yourself from either tribe and the threats to either tribe. Go your own individual way as best you can without needing to defend anything.
6. Refuse to polarize, refuse to demonize or mock your neighbor who is on the other side and accept all humans on both sides as being fully human and worthy of respect. Listen to each other and see if you can find a way to understand and accept your differences while finding a way to live together. We do this in times of war or disaster, such as when the devastation of tropical storm Helen brought us all in Western North Carolina together.
7. Accept the democratic result and find a way to live within it as we do with every other election. Rely on being able to change things at the next election.
These are just that options I have thought about. I am sure there are many others. All of these seem difficult in one way or another and I am afraid that I will just coast along and be unhappy and do none of them, hoping that Trump doesn’t win and I can stop worrying for a little while.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 