67 million reasons to think anew

It’s early on November 5th, 2020, and the days of waiting for a decision on this election have been wrenching. For me, a Democrat, there is some comfort in the pundits’ reassurance that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are all but certain to prevail, in the fullness of time. Yet even then, this conflictual ordeal will continue. Should the Democrats attain those precious 270 electoral college votes, we are certain to witness every legal maneuver conceivable being enlisted by the Republicans to undo that victory. With our Supreme Court now thoroughly politicized, and our lower federal courts now filled with appointees (2/3 of whom are white men) chosen largely by the Federalist Society, blessed by Mitch McConnell, and championed by Donald Trump, am I wrong to be less than sanguine about the integrity of our rule of law institutions? And then there is the wearisome, exasperating prospect of at least two more years of Congressional stalemate, as Mitch McConnell continues his machinations to obstruct anything coming from a Democratic President or House of Representatives. It is hard to look ahead with enthusiasm. Still, I will embrace the Inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris with all the optimism and hope that I can muster, all the while knowing that in the political and social rubble that remains there will still be a broken America.

There will still be over 67 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump.

What’s with that vast Red swath of American states? Where did that multitude of Trump supporters come from, and how did they come to think like they do, and vote like they did? Yesterday the United States recorded over 100,000 coronavirus cases; it is a new and appalling record for a pandemic that has been badly mishandled from the start by those in authority– to the cost of almost 230,000 American lives (which nearly equals the total of all American lives lost in battle in World War II). The damage as measured in those lives lost, those families bereaved, our economy shattered, and the fact that there is still no early end in sight seems not to have mattered to Trump supporters. Trump has been a monstrous leader, without moral integrity, honesty, empathy, vision, intellectual capacity, or democratic principles. How can more than 67 million Americans have wanted four more years of him at the helm?

Our nation will be wrestling with that conundrum for years to come, but some things are obvious to me.

First, we as a nation must work very hard starting right now to find — or to create awareness of — our shared identity as human beings, even before we contemplate our shared citizenship or our other identities. Our current absence of solidarity is all too obvious as we look around us at the deepening chasms of division that make forward progress nearly impossible. The GPS does not show us how to find our way back to common ground, and most of us no longer remember that old map that we all used to rely on — our Constitution. For those of us who are committed to liberal democracy (which both Democrats and Republicans have very strong reasons to support), we find ourselves bogged down by the weight of those 67 million reasons for questioning the belief that common ground within the United States is even a possibility. We lack the words — the secular moral vocabulary — to discuss concepts like the common good, the obligations and privileges of citizenship, the merits of altruism and public service, the inherent limitations of a world dominated by patriarchal values, or the abhorrence of the growing social and economic inequalities under which a relatively few people hoarding immense wealth and power exist alongside a vast numbers of Americans who suffer from deprivation, hopelessness, and despair.

Second, we must remember that our citizenship is best expressed not in national election campaigns and the incessant online “chip in $5 now” fundraising automatons, but instead in local engagement. With the death of local papers, and with our lives linked to a vast anonymity of on-screen “realities”, we barely know our neighbors, nor who has just run for the local school board. Getting engaged locally is the start to building a durable and diverse sense of solidarity and hope for the future.

Third, we must come to the realization that we are in this together. All of us — the whole planet. Presently we fail to look beyond our own borders, barely aware of the suffering and need of people who live under crushing poverty and oppression, some of whom seek asylum at our country’s doors. Many of those asylum-seekers are convenient fodder for politicians who dehumanize them by branding them as a threat, and as anything but decent human beings. We cannot even imagine, and — because of those political boundaries we have drawn onto a world of moral concerns that all persons everywhere face — we seem to think that the plight of such asylum seekers and refugees is not our concern. Our bedrock moral commitment to the equal human dignity of every person — everywhere — is shrouded in the debris of a society now aggressively committed to individual self-interest, manipulation of others, and reverence for the maximization of power and wealth by any means possible.

Fourth, before we as a nation plan our route forward, we need to open our eyes. We must start by acknowledging that the journey will be a long one, and plan accordingly while measuring our progress (and our evolution) incrementally. At present we are either unable or unwilling to think beyond the short term, and so many of us are blithely willing to sacrifice the viability of life on our planet for our own immediate short-term economic growth, and for a bounce in the stock markets. The lives of our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren seem unimportant in comparison to keeping gas prices low.

Fifth, we must realize that many of the answers that we are now looking for have been available to us all along. We are imbued with untold wealth within the diversity that defines us. Women have a different world view than men, and a different wisdom to share. It is long past time for accepting the relegation of women — and our values and experiences — to a subordinate class of humanity. People of different races, ethnicities, ages, abilities, sexual orientations, gender identities, class and caste, all carry within us the potential to build a new polity and social reality together, if we can embrace our diversity and move forward together. The divide and conquer of pitting one marginalized group’s interest and humanity against “the other” is based on the premise that we can only deal with one form of marginalization at a time. Were we to shift our thinking to what we all hold in common, and forge a new shared moral language of care, compassion, empathy, decency, and solidarity (yes, these are mostly feminist values), we have within us the capacity to define citizenship anew.

We stand on the threshold of building a positive — but very different — America. We have 67 million reasons to do so, and there is no need to wait until January 20th to begin.