I’d say that I’ve had a bit of writer’s block recently, but it’s a bit more complicated. I hate writing indoors and it’s been raining here every day for a week. I like having a nice block of time to think, and this is my son’s busiest time of the year with 3-to-4 soccer matches a week and many more practices between his club and his high school team. But, most of all, I feel like I’ve arrived at that moment when you look up and realize that a fast train is bearing down on you and it’s too late to do anything about it. You’re stuck on the rails and no decision or reflex can save you. Your only chance of survival is that someone else flips the railway switch so the train jumps to another track.
For this first time since I started this blog, 19 years ago, it feels like I am at the complete mercy of others. Either they’ll save the country by electing Harris and Walz or they won’t, and there isn’t anything I can write that will alter our fate. There are a number of factors that explain this feeling of helplessness, but they all combine to describe the irreparable peril we’re in. If Donald Trump wins, there is no force remaining, not the law and courts, not the media, not the Constitution, not Congress, and certainly not Trump’s own party that can or will restrain him and hold him accountable.
This is completely different from the peril of a second term of George W. Bush, which the country barely survived and never fully recovered from. It’s different than the prospect of Mitt Romney winning and wiping away President Barack Obama’s accomplishments, which we partially saw later on with the election of Trump. It’s even different from what would have happened if Trump had been reelected in 2020, because he’s now much more clearly trying to avoid prison, more hellbent on revenge, and the Supreme Court has put the office of the presidency almost completely above the law.
He will unleash a kind of hell on the country and the world unlike anything we’ve seen since the Civil War, and more serious because of the international consequences. All our guardrails and institutions will break, and there won’t be any legal or normal nonviolent pathway back to normalcy. Our system depends too much of bipartisan consensus to survive when one party opts for dictatorship and gains the power to pursue vengeance.
I confess that this feeling isn’t rational. I never really had that much influence anyway. None of us can move the river or control the winds. And I probably still can have more influence by writing and podcasting than by simply taking a walk-sheet and knocking on doors. A better description might be the deer in the headlights that still might technically have time to evade an approaching car but freezes out of panic.
Rest easy that I am not completely panicked. I’m actually modestly optimistic, bolstered somewhat by polls that are more encouraging than not. It’s the profound sense of loss of agency in the face of stakes of unimaginable scale and permanence that has me rattled. What should I write about? What can compare to the main thing?
But I’ll soldier on as I always have, because we need all hands on deck right now. We need people using every tool and skill they have available to them, including taking those walk-sheets and talking to their neighbors. We still need bloggers and podcasters to work the media and the refs, and to educate people about Trump’s intentions.
I’m just saying, it’s never been so hard to just sit down and write.
5
This is deep. I’m grateful for your honesty. If anything, living in a bright blue state in my current state of health (recovering, mercifully, but still a ways to go) exacerbates the feelings you describe so well.
The past decade (or quarter century) of national politics leaves me feeling battered and bruised, while at the same time knowing there are more rounds to come in this fight. The next one—obviously, and appropriately—from now until Nov. 5 looms largest. But then (best case scenario) there’s Trump’s second attempt to overthrow an election or (worst case scenario) Trump’s election (and if he wins, there’s an excellent chance Republicans control the House and Senate, too).
But even if that happens (I remind myself), all is not over. Nor is it all lost. Yes, it’s a grim prospect with untold pain and suffering to come, but it’s not like it’s the first time in history something like this has happened. Other people/communities/nations have survived and overcome (yes, at great cost) worse. We can too.
(But it would be waaay better to have Harris win.)
5
You are certainly not alone in that feeling. Here in Ohio, there is little to nothing we can do on the Presidential side. We’re fighting for Sherrod Brown and some State Candidates. Issue 1, which would finally address the gerrymandering that has allowed a Republican supermajority is another big deal. It seems, however, that Republicans have found out that they can simply ignore the will of voters, with no ramifications, when it comes to State issues, so I’m still uncertain that even if Issue1 passes, that the bipartisan board of non-politicians it calls for in order to redraw districts will ever even happen. The GOP owns the entire process, and there seem to be no guardrails here anymore.
So we just go about our daily business with that gnawing, sickening feeling ever-present in the pit of our stomach that in a few short weeks things could go horribly sideways in ways which we cannot even imagine. It feels kind of analogous to being a prisoner on death row, waiting for that phone call to find whether or not the sentence is going to be carried out or commuted. Sometimes, emotionally, I do feel kind of like a dead man walking. I try not to dwell on the potential negatives, but I guess it’s part of human nature to do that. I know things could also go very well, and for my peace of mind I should probably try to think on that a bit more often than I do. But even if things go well, the other side is prepared to do some very awful things that could severely and permanently cripple our democratic process, and that even if the count goes our way and we have obviously won, we are still going to go thru some things. That thought also weighs on me, that even if we win, will we be able to actually claim the full measure of the victory?
There are so many downsides here, even in victory, that it’s easy to get lost in despair. I can only imagine how difficult it is for people such as you to persevere in the face of all this, but all us out her do appreciate everything you have done, and continue to do, to keep us focused and as sane as might be possible while we try to keep moving forward in these whirlwinds of insanity going on all around us.
Thanks for this, MikeInOhio. Lots of us appreciate you, too.
One of my favorite guilty pleasures movies is Armageddon. I know it’s garbage, but I love it.
Anyway, there’s a scene in the movie where they’re up on the asteroid and Steve Buscemi’s character is bemoaning the terrible landing place and says they couldn’t have picked a worse spot to drill through the surface. Bruce Willis’s character then says something like “well, I can pretty much guarantee that the iron plate isn’t more than 50 feet thick.” Buscemi says “well how do you figure that?” To which Bruce Willis says “Because if it is, we’re screwed.”
That’s pretty much how I feel now – I can pretty much guarantee Kamala is going to win. Because if she doesn’t, we’re screwed.
5
You live in Pennsylvania, right? PA is basically the state.
If Trump wins PA, he probably wins the EC. If Harris wins PA, she probably wins the EC.
Make sure everyone you know in PA who isn’t a fascist or a collaborator knows exactly where their early voting location is, and what days/times they can go and vote. Offer to give them a ride, too.
Here in GA, I’ve gotten 2 35 year olds who have never voted, to register to vote, and I will either be taking them to their early voting location, or I’ll be hounding them about going as early as possible.
Doing what you can to help get every possible non-fascist voter to the polls is how you win.
yes, that is precisely how to maximize your say in this election.