Yesterday I wrote and posted the angriest thing I’ve ever written in public. By the end of the day, I pulled it. Admin note: I’ve republished the post. I shouldn’t be a coward about it. Some of you answered gently and a few others unsubscribed. It was an odd experience, letting myself off the leash a bit. I have always tried to present myself as thoughtful, curious, and circumspect, but I am also human. Watching this election, listening to conservatives insult and deride everything I value – women’s rights, education, books, diversity, the environment. Hearing all the excuses for voting for someone who engenders everything I loathe – loudmouthed, cruel, blustering, thoughtless, violent – someone who has promised to destroy all the protections for marginalized groups, women, the elderly, children, education, civil rights, climate, healthcare – well, obviously, it’s been very difficult to process. All of it has been like watching a slow-moving car crash as a passenger. There’s nothing I can do in the moment and I’m grieving.
Donna at A Year of Living Kindly shared a Substack post excerpt with me from one of my favorite writers, George Saunders. He was more gentle, more incisive, and more sly than I was. It set me back on my heels a bit. Perhaps someday I will have that kind of skill, but I also recognize that I am exhausted. Politics is such a corrosive thing, but I’ve tried to stay well-informed. In the last ten years, people saying vile things about women and marginalized groups has been normalized in public spaces. Never have I been so aware of the globally systemic and cultural enmity towards women and the deep, malevolent desire to bring them to heel or to see them dead. That many women have traded the lives of other women – all for the desultory status they gain from cozying up to the power structures that denigrate, molest, assault, and kill their sisters. Well, it’s beyond the pale (statistically very pale).
I’ve been resistant to the more passionate activist language. I’m a midwesterner who comes from a family of Brits. I married a Scandinavian. Everything about me and my life is about understatement. I also have a level of self-consciousness that reins in any drama or histrionics. Control. Subtlety. Curiosity. Empathy. These are apparently limited wells for me. Perhaps, too, I’m coming to terms with whatever lack of power I have to make any difference to anything. All of this has been a slow-brewing rage and a deep abiding sadness about humans. We’ve been seeing the worst of them everywhere, hearing their loud braying, experiencing their dominance in social media spaces and in reporting by the mainstream media. The infinite ringing of racism and misogyny. The crowing anti-intellectualism and fawning ignorance of people who operate on a bumper sticker mentality.
I’m not ready to answer the question, so what now? I’m probably not ready to write or even be seen in public at this point. I finally, nearly a week later, broke down and had a good cry. The manic rage that has had me wired all week finally revealed itself. But even in grief, I can hear the malevolent voices. Liberal tears. I will likely spend hours thinking about why people would see a racist, rapist, felon who promises destruction everywhere he goes as a solution. They will spend no time at all wondering why people are grieving, until one day, the tears are theirs. Because this story does not have a good ending for anyone except for ultra-wealthy white men, their sidecar women, and their maladjusted children. Pro tip: good people don’t acquire grotesque piles of money and unfettered power.
So I leave this here. I will not self-censor, but I will self-edit. I will not stay in this dark place for too long, but I will spend some time getting my own emotional ducks in a row. I will follow in the path of my liberal friends, to take a beat, administer self-care and care to those who are also grieving. It will soon be time to get out of the car, assess the damage, and start making repairs. Until then, be well my friends.
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