A friend of mine just left the United States. Not leaving forever, but in some respects philosophically departing. He packed a bag and is presently traveling in South America on an undetermined timeline.
Before leaving, he said that he felt he had to leave the country for a while rather than watch as Trump and his minions work to lacerate democracy on a daily basis.
My unnamed friend’s odyssey is all the more distressing because he had just recently become a naturalized US citizen, something that he had neglected to do while living and working here for more than ten years. He had put off applying, thinking that he’d get it around to it some day. Meanwhile, he’d been able to live here, thrive, and occasionally travel back to his childhood home. Then he finally made a successful effort, swearing his allegiance. He celebrated his first opportunity to vote in a U.S. election, much like a second birthday.
But alas he had the misfortune of picking a time like none other in this country. In this year, 2025, half or more of the nation is in disbelief finding that our country is becoming a nightmare, thanks to a single self-absorbed individual. Arguably there are fellow travelers and willing helpers. But things would not have reached this fever pitch without the maneuverings of that corrupt figurehead. In the prophetic words of Henry Adams: he was using politics to achieve “the systematic organization of hatreds.”
My fleeing friend isn’t the only one. There are a dozen others I know – including a once highly placed official – who have said that they almost religiously avoid reading the news They claim that each new day brings reports more disastrous than the last.
It is indeed tempting to shut out unsettling reports, attempt to escape the sick feeling in the pit of one’s stomach and heavy feeling across one’s chest. Many instead turn to sports contests, flee into fantasy, or seek other distractions. But sadly that avoidance is counterproductive.
The truth is that the opposition can only win if it remains fully in the game. This, of course, brings up the question: what can the average individual do besides shudder? While there seem limited ways to combat the unraveling of democracy, it is important to do whatever one can: make phone calls to one’s representatives, attend town halls and speak up, donate to appropriate causes like the Reporters Center for Freedom of the Press, volunteer to help in some democratic action, join with others to demonstrate, work to show solidarity against anarchy.
I like to think of how it must have seemed back in the early days of this democracy: the time when this young nation, although ill-represented by only the landed few, faced the unyielding authority of the British Crown. There is a glimmer of hope in remembering that the nation’s forebearers once rejected kingly power. With determination and even broader representation today we could do so again.
It is probable that one individual’s efforts averting eyes from the dreadful news and standing up, won’t make a bit of difference. But one thing is very certain: If we drop out, tune out, turn a blind eye, then there is no hope at all.
Preach, Jean!
It seems like all the normal, politically unaware people were gathered in one place at one time by all the cruel and malicious people, and got bamboozled into voting for a long, slow trip into the crematorium oven. Except that they and we are not quite dead yet, and we can all hear ourselves screaming.
Please, please, encourage as many left (and east) coast progs as possible to get out now! Provincial Seattle has never benefited from the degradation that socialists have engendered there, especially over the last decade. I hear Venezuela is lovely this time of year and Nicolas Moduro is much more to attuned to the average Seattle lefty’s political and social points of view.
Good points as ever Jean…BUT.
While Trump did not have a mandate as he daily claims, this was a close election. But equally inescapable is the 40+% support Trumpism seems to have, much of which are his immovable core MAGAists. If that represents what the US is becoming, then other factors come into play. In my case age and others in the growing 70-80-90+ group. To change the direction the US is taking will take more than another election, more than a decade, we may be seeing generational challenges.
There are parts of the world that show signs of resisting the hard right rather more effectively than the US. Their values, once ours, are the grass that seems greener on the other side of the fence.
The old order that was our comfort zone, Centrist Republicans, government and governed who accepted the the value and need for compromise and respect for the rule of law; those comforts are, for the moment, lost in polarization where dialogue has become uncompromising.
We will know more after next year’s midterms, but the outlook is bleak beyond the issue of wha an individual can do.