Knowing me you
should not be surprised that I feel compelled to write about what I am thinking
and feeling after this election. My initial reaction included sadness,
fear, curiosity, and despair. After much soul searching and thought these
feelings were joined (not replaced) by dedication, hope, and even excitement. Here is an explanation of how I found my way
along the path from despair to hope.
Before I tell my story, it is important to
acknowledge how divided we are in this country and how differently events look
from our different perspectives. In the
days following the election I had lengthy debates with friends who supported
Trump. One of these was instigated by a
Facebook post in which I suggested Trump used racism, bigotry, and misogyny
during his campaign. My friend thought I
was being illogical and hurtful to the country to suggest such things and very
strongly believes that Trump never said anything racist or mean hearted, that
it was the media who took his words out of context and created this false
belief. This is just one illustration of
how differently we can see this election, because to me it seems so obvious
that Trump used racist and sexist language and that he brilliantly played on
people’s economic and security fears for the future by identifying groups of
people to blame that he could protects us from by building a wall, ending
refugee programs, etc. A very clever,
very effective, and not at all original, political strategy. Another illustration of how differently we see
things: I heard a man interviewed who said he could never trust Obama’s
intentions but he knows he can trust Trump because he is an honest man of
integrity. Suffice it to say I don’t
quite see it that way. While I don’t
agree with Obama on all issues, I believe he is a man of integrity. As a businessman, Trump did not exemplify
integrity. For a model of integrity as a
businessman I would look towards someone like Ray
Anderson. Trump’s business model
was that if it was even barely legal, it was good business. (and of course much of what he did with his
non-profit, etc. were not
even legal) This, to me, makes the case for government
regulations, which Trump wants to cut back.
But let’s save that for later.
In the days after the election I definitely
felt like the joy had been sucked out of my soul. One challenge for me was
that I had children to worry about. The way I felt was no way for a child
to feel. So I had to address the question(s): how do we acknowledge what is
happening and what might happen in the future, and at the same time keep hope
and joy alive? In order to do this I had to temper what I was afraid
might happen as a result of this election with the reality that we can’t
foresee the future, there may be a silver lining to all this, that we are
really most greatly impacted by the things in our immediate community and we
have significant control over those regardless who is in the Whitehouse, and
with the fact that throughout our nation’s history, the pendulum of power has
swung from the left to the right and back again and this is likely just one more
swing of many more to come.
My own children certainly paid attention to
the election and were bummed at the results, but they are not especially
political and reassuring them that everything will be all right was not too
difficult. This task of rationalizing the
results was especially difficult when it came to my students. I teach
middle school at a school for gifted kids. There is no lack of
understanding for any of these students who are interested in politics, which
is most of them. They read books like “The New Jim Crow” for fun and know
more about gerrymandering than most adults.
They are also very deeply invested in the issue of climate change.
They studied the subject, looked into Gene Sharp’s 198 methods of non-violent
action and the Albert Einstein institute, helped organize a summit of climate
change organizations to discuss a national grand strategy of non-violence to
force government action on climate change, presented their project on
non-violent climate action at this year’s Bioneer’s Conference, where they met
their heros like native American activists Kandi Mosset and Tom Goldtooth, and
youth climate activist Xiuhtezcatl, and they plan to meet with
senators during their trip to DC in December to deliver a Climate Victory Plan
modeled after the Victory Plan of WWII. In
addition, written into the platform of the Democratic party this year was a
promise that within the first 100 days of office they would convene a
conference to look at the possibility of mobilizing the nations resrouces on a
scale not seen since WWI to address the problem of to climate change. Of course
my students understood that having a climate denier elected President of the US
was a major setback to this issue they have been working on and care so much
about.
After the election my
students sent me graphs showing projected global CO2 levels if Trump won the
election vs Clinton winning the election.
When reading Trump’s 100 day plan, those who care about climate action
can find little to be hopeful about. He
plans to ramp up fossil fuel production – coal, tar sands, oil – this at a time
when most scientists believe we are at a crucial tipping point. A time when we are being urged to rapidly
stop using fossil fuels. To me this is
the most concerning policy of Trump and in my opinion should be considered a
crime against humanity and nature and is arguably the biggest threat life on
Earth has ever faced (not that Trump is responsible for climate change, but in
the face of the evidence, to shift the direction of global action in the wrong
direction at such a crucial time…and while we don’t know why he thinks this
way, we do know that he will profit from his dangerous policies. He wants to OK the Keystone XL pipeline –
because it will provide jobs? Or because he has personal investments in
it? A lot of his business is tied up in
fossil fuel infrastructure so it makes sense he wants to ramp up
production.
So my initial job was
to keep hope alive, for myself, but especially for these young people. Of course it was important to acknowledge our
feelings and hear everyone share how they were feeling. Throughout the election I was also trying to
hold space for the fact that many people support Trump and we need to respect
diverse opinions. My teaching partner,
who is a historian, gave the ‘long view’ speech. To kids who are only 12 years old, this is
the first political pendulum swing they have really been aware of. It must be difficult to imagine that the
political pendulum swings right to left in this country (and countries around
the world) and will continue to do so. I
remember feeling the same emotions after the 2004 election and then we swung
back and almost had Bernie Sanders for president 12 years later.
When my students asked
me what are they to do now, regarding their activism around climate change and
other issues, my simple response was ‘work harder’. We all need to keep working towards the
future we want to live in. I discussed
with my students the fact that there are different paths to change. There is top down driven change and change
that is driven by the grass roots. Most
change in this country, and the world, has happened because the people in the
streets demanded it. Even if Hilary was
elected, she was unlikely to take radical steps to help the working class or
fight climate change without huge amounts of pressure from the American
people. We know our politicians already
are under lots of pressure from corporate interests, interests within the
military industrial complex, etc. The
people need to speak loudly to be heard over those lobbyists. Our students had read Bill McKibben’s article
saying we need a WWII level mobilization to fight climate change. One idea was that to start this we needed a
Pearl Harbor like event. This was the
idea behind planning a grand strategy of non-violence around the country once
Hilary was elected. As it turns out,
Trump’s election might be that Pearl Harbor like rallying event. Hopefully this is the spark of a grassroots
movement towards a more inclusive and sustainable society! We will see people organizing against fossil
fuels most certainly. It has already
begun of course but we need it to be taken to the next level. The original Americans are being tear gasses
as we ‘speak’ at Standing Rock as they try to protect the water and land from
another oil pipeline. 2,000
US veterans are on their way to act as human shields between the police and
protestors. We will likely see states like California and even cities around
the country stepping up their goals for renewable energy and demonstrating what
can and should be done. In fact, I
suspect, we will see states lead on many other issues such as single payer
health care. So there are paths for
solutions to find their way to reality, even if they are not being supported by
those at the very top.
I think this is one of
the reasons to be most hopeful and even excited. The Republicans now control Congress and the
Whitehouse. They will get to do what they want (or at least what they can – it
will be interesting to see how much they can do) and we should see clearly what
their vision for the country is (more on this later). The Democrats lost because they have moved
further and further to the right in their political policies. They have cozied up to Wall Street, passed
free trade like NAFTA, supported deregulation, etc. Obama was elected on the notion of
CHANGE! Did the Democrats deliver
change? Not really. Drone strikes increased, healthcare costs
increased, fossil fuel production increased, wages decreased, income inequality
increased. Now we have this perfect
storm where the American people on both sides said they are tired of this. Working class Americans want a government
that works for them, not the top 1%.
This we saw in Bernie Sanders and Trump’s popularity. Ironically Trump and the Republicans won the
election. I say ironic because Trump is
the 1% and the Republican policies are the ones I believe have made our problems
with wealth inequality in this country what they are today. Now the Republicans can show us what they
will do to solve this problem. What is
exciting is the fact that Bernie Sanders, who has always been on the side of
the working class, now will have a major voice in reshaping the Democratic
party. Perhaps this loss is what the
Democrats needed. Hopefully the next
time the political pendulum swings back to the left, there is actually a Democratic
party that is ready to fight for the working class and the environment. This is an exciting opportunity for the
Democrats. In fact, if you look at the
issues, most Americans are to the left of both parties, so it can only serve
the Democrats well to move back to the left.
Now I do blame the
Democrats for their loss, because trying to play both sides – acting like you
care about the working class while at the same time trying to keep the Wall Street
donors happy, obviously has not worked.
But to be fair, we don’t know what the Democrats would have done if they
had some cooperation from the Republicans.
Let’s remember that the stated goal of the Republicans in congress as
soon as Obama was elected, was to block
everything Obama tried to do. They filibustered everything, (maybe not
everything but as of 2014 they blocked 500 bills)
blocked Obama’s appointments to departments and courts, etc. They often blocked things/people they said
they agreed with just because they did not want Obama succeeding. One example of this was Obama’s stimulous. Obama came into office during our worst
economic collapse (thanks in part to deregulation Bill Clinton signed into law)
and he wanted to pass huge infrastructure bill to stimulate the economy. The Republicans fought him and the compromise
was such a small amount that economists said it was have a very minimal
effect. Obama has wanted to pass more
such spending bills and been denied by Congress. Now Trump says he wants to pass an infrastructure
spending bill to stimulate the economy.
This is one thing I agree with Trump on, let’s see if he can get the
Republicans on board, since they will have to ignore the same arguments they used to
oppose Obama’s stimulus. Trump wants to spend more and lower
taxes. It will be interesting to see if
the Republicans stop worrying about the deficit now that they are in
charge. I did hear economists saying
that they don’t believe Trump’s stimulus package is targeting the correct things
to really help the economy so as always, the devil will be in the details.
Healthcare is an
interesting example as well. The left
was asking for a single payer system like the ones most countries in the world
have. The right believes in the open market
– let insurance companies compete in a ‘free market’ and all will be good. Obama wanted to do something about health
care but he took single payer off the table before he even began negotiating
with the Republicans.
Obamacare ended up
being a disaster for many reasons, but I believe the main reason is that, despite
its name, it did nothing to address the underlying problem, and that is the
astronomical cost of health care in this country. The for-profit model is not working. For a
personal example: our two boys had the same surgery – one in Germany without
any healthcare and one in the US with full coverage. In Germany we paid 100% out of pocket – which
was $800. In the US we had to pay 20% of
the cost even with insurance and the cost was $25,000!!! For the same surgery. Obamacare did nothing to address this. Just yesterday I spoke with a woman who is a
nurse at Stanford but is originally from Belarus. She said after living here for 15 years she
realizes not everything is perfect in the US – especially health care. She said she sees people who are retired and
did everything right their entire life only to have to sell their house and go
bankrupt due to medical costs their health insurance companies don’t
cover. Obamacare did do good things and
it will be so interesting to see how Trump goes about following up on his
promise. The Republicans have wanted to
repeal Obamacare for so long. Now they
can. Trump says he wants to keep popular parts like the fact insurance
companies cannot deny people with preexisting conditions while at the same time
he wants to get rid of the individual mandate.
The problem is, in order to keep the insurance costs down, you need to
have both of those things. You can’t
have one without the other without health costs increasing even more. I don’t believe the Republicans can fix our
health care system with their pro-corporate agenda.
This is true for all their policies. We are going to see the most right wing
government the US has ever had. While
Trump said he would drain the swamp, he is filling his cabinet with swamp
natives. So far he has chosen people
from the far right of the Republican party, billionaires, and people with a
history of association with the Alt Right and white supremacists. It will be an
interesting combination with people like Stephen
Bannon from the Alt-Right website Breitbart News who has stated his goal as
taking down the government as Trump’s Chief Strategist to Jeff
Sessions from the right wing fringe of the Republican party who was rejected
for a spot on the Federal Bench due to racial bias, has called civil rights
groups ‘un-American’, and is Trump’s pick to be Attorney General. To be
in charge of the Department of Education he nominated Betsy
Devos, a billionaire product of private schools who wants to privatize
education, for Secretary of Health and Human services Tom
Price who is a staunch opponent of abortion, Obamacare, Planned Parenthood,
and supports privatizing Medicare; and K.T.
McFarland as national security advisor, who joins the ranks of climate
deniers on Trump’s team and who claimed Obama encouraged the terrorists by
attending the Paris Climate talks. Trump’s
security team will be at odds with the Defense Department on the issue of
Climate Change being a major security risk.
And to top it all off, after railing against Hilary Clinton for giving
paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, Trump has appointed the poster child of ‘swamp
dwelling’ wall street banker, Steven
Mnuchin, to be Treasury Secretary.
Mnuchin was a partner at Goldman Sachs and a hedge fund manager who not
only helped cause the financial crash of 2008, he moved in and bought one of
the failed banks which was infamous for bad loans and personally profited
millions of dollars while the working people lost their homes. This guy is the definition of what is wrong
with our economy. And most recently, Ben
Carson has been nominated to run the Department of Housing and Urban
Development. This is a guy who admitted
he was not qualified for the job and has said people are poop because they
don’t work hard enough and has said anti-discrimination housing laws are
communist.
Naomi Klein’s book: The Shock Doctrine is
especially relevant here. Her idea is
that after major shocks such as a natural disaster, war, or political coup;
global players take advantage of the lack of leadership and confusion to push
through their own legislative agenda, things that would not be accepted by the
people under ordinary circumstances. The
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Patriot act after 911 are examples in this
country. Her theory focuses mainly on
economic issues, such as privatizing the water in a country like Bolivia or
selling off coastal property to corporations after a Tsunami. This election certainly has been a shock and
the people with conservative agendas are lined up to push through what they can. We will see a push for an increased
surveillance state, for privatization of everything possible from schools to
social security, the NRA will be pushing for a national concealed carry law
that can trump gun controls laws of States, of course the oil industry will try
to push through all the fossil fuel infrastructure they can, legal abortion
will be on the chopping block, of course things like Planned Parenthood are
likely to be defunded, the EPA and environmental regulations will certainly be
under assault, and the list goes on. It
is true that there will be serious repercussions from this election.
Two days after the
election I heard Caroline Casey talk about the despair people were feeling post
election. She said that the antidote to
despair is dedication. She said that we
need to compost our despair and use it to cultivate our dedication towards the
future we want. I liked this very much,
even from a neurological perspective it makes sense because focusing on tasks
has been shown to reduce depression. And
dedicating ourselves to improving the world around us and working towards a
better world can give us hope and even make us excited for the future we are
creating. We can see all sorts of
examples of people turning their post election despair into dedication. Much of this has had to do with counteracting
the message of hate that found a platform in the campaign of the President
Elect. People dedicated themselves to
reaching out and being vocal about creating inclusive communities where
everyone is valued regardless of race, sexual orientation, political
affiliation, etc.
I am excited to see how the future
unfolds. I am excited to see how Bernie
Sanders helps to recreate the Democratic Party.
I am excited to see 2,000 veterans act as human shields between the
police and the Native American protestors at Standing Rock, I am excited to see
people organize to keep fossil fuels in the ground, I am excited to see
communities organize to support immigrants and inclusivity, I am excited to see
how states and cities step up to lead towards progressive policies, and if not
excited I am certainly interested in seeing how the Republican plans for
medical care, international affairs, the economy, etc all pan out and what the
reaction to these changes are among the American people. I can’t imagine Trump’s agenda is going to improve
the economic situation for the majority of the working class and it is going to
be interesting to see how this all plays out.
