Yesterday, the day after the election, I was simply in shock. Friends who share my political beliefs called, texted and emailed; many were experiencing extreme grief, disbelief, anger and confusion. I wasn’t having any of those emotions; I simply felt empty, flat, almost as if I had taken a sedative.
I worked on some final tasks of editing a book I’ve been working on for months. I completed some details of image management on another book. I typed an interview. I decided to cook dinner for some neighbors, and tried a new recipe for rosemary-lemon chicken. I shepherded the dog outside and in, wiping him down when he came in, covered with snow, digging the little snowballs out of his paws so he didn’t spread the water around the house as they melted.
None of it made me feel anything. Then, something else happened.
I started making contingency plans.
I considered moving all my meager retirement savings into insured financial products, in anticipation of a market crash when Trump starts imposing some of his crazy ideas. I thought about going to Costo and buying 50-pound bags of jasmine rice and pinto beans so I would have food no matter what. I contemplated getting a roommate in my tiny townhouse in order to add another thin layer of financial security to my wildly variable monthly income.
There it was: insecurity, masquerading as financial worry.
Hiding beneath the financial insecurity was a feeling that the rug had been pulled out from underneath me. My fundamental beliefs about democracy, about my country, about the future, had been upended. The patriotic little Air Force brat who stood on the tarmac, thrilled by the Thunderbirds flying formation overhead, and pledged allegiance to the flag in school every day, wasn’t feeling so secure anymore. Nothing was as it was the day before; and going forward, nothing could be relied on to remain the same.
I admonished myself to consider how the people of Gaza are feeling every day, their homes gone, family members dead or seriously injured, the lack of food, water and basic medical care, the Israeli bombing threatening their very existence. These same things are true for people all over the world, of course. In fact, I have elderly friends who experienced such things in Europe during World War II.
But all is relative; our own experiences define our lives. I cannot think of a more disorienting, insecure moment in my own life, and I’ve experienced a few difficult times in my own life: My family survived the 1966 tornado that struck Topeka, Kansas; I lived through a debilitating, painful childhood illness; I’ve had cancer. Only 9/11 came close to causing me to feel this insecure. And like me, most adults I know have suffered through some insecure periods in their lives.
This feels different. Right or wrong, this feels like a threat to my very survival, and to the survival of people I love. If we are facing, as some believe, a fascist regime in which people are dragged from their homes and put in camps, to be imprisoned for opposing the regime, or for deportation; in which women’s bodies are monitored and regulated by the government, and they are punished for using birth control or the miscarriage of a fetus; in which violence against people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, Jews, Muslims, and immigrants is tolerated or even encouraged—how, exactly, are we to respond?
I believe we must look to those who have come before us, those who have survived things far worse than we can imagine.
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest,” wrote Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Weisel.
I believe we must demand that our representatives and officials in government hold course, continue to do their jobs with integrity, no matter what. We must fight without quarter, by whatever means we can except violence, to protect democracy and those who are threatened by the regime. We must be the people who act, not those who stand by and watch in fear. We must do whatever small things we can do, every day, for the people in our midst who are suffering.
We must reject our tendencies to buy into polarization, the idea that those who do not share our beliefs are our enemies.
We must laugh at our insecurities, our real and not-so-real fears about what may happen. (Fifty-pound bags of rice and beans? Really?)
We must read, listen to and watch mainstream media and social media outlets that tell the truth rather than promoting division and making doomsday predictions.
But most of all, we must foster hope, not hatred; love, not fear; and practice kindness toward ourselves and others, no matter what.
And, as Weisel wrote, “Think higher, feel deeper.”
A version of this column appeared in the Santa Fe New Mexican Nov. 10, 2024.
