It’s the day after and I’m numb, crumbling under the weight of knowing that we are not what I thought we were….what I was raised to believe…what I hoped and trusted would win out in the end. It’s a feeling of mourning, of deep loss, not of shock but of resignation, the horror of evil going unpunished, of otherwise decent people looking the other way, an awareness of what it must have been for Germans in the 30’s to witness a collective loss of conscience.
Would I feel better if I had gone door to door in Arizona or Nevada? Would I feel even more like a fool if I’d filled out five hundred more postcards? My contributions of time and money didn’t matter in the end, but they were expressions of hope, of belief in the overall goodness of human beings, of truth to win out in the end. I know that life isn’t black and white, that binaries only serve to divide, but where in a nation run by a convicted felon who cares not about policy or any of the values on which this nation was founded and built, will I find my place?
I will find it here in my community where we treat each other with kindness…I will find it in the woods where politics do not reside, where I can focus, instead, on the interconnectedness of living things.
I fear for my grandchildren who, I can only hope, will spend decades trying to undo the damage that will be unleashed. There’s a deadly virus in our judicial system that will continue to metastasize before our eyes. The future feels bleak and yet there’s plenty that we can do, today, tomorrow, and beyond, to strengthen whatever is left of our safeguards, to build stronger communities based on mutual respect, to extend a hand to those in need, to build institutions and alliances that take care of those in need of protection, that serve those willing to work, to care for their young and their elderly, to engage in acts of kindness.
Germany reemerged from the darkness and so will we. Dictators die, pendulums swing. We know what to do.