A Little Hope
Above: Paul Klee, Little Hope. This was painted in 1938, as Klee was dying in Switzerland. He and his family had been forced to leave Germany several years before because the Nazis considered Klee to be a “degenerate” artist. His late style was adopted in part because he was increasingly limited in his mobility. Despite this, Klee was able to produce thousands of works during the last few years of his life.
“The social struggle cannot be reduced to the struggle between two rival ideologies: it is the subversion of all ideology which is in question.” —Roland Barthes, The Pleasures of the Text
Yesterday, Martin Luther King Day, the most racist president in at least a century was inaugurated for a second term.
If you vote for a racist, are you a racist? With your vote, are you endorsing racism? There is a contradiction here, as there is a contradiction in the myth of the US itself: a country of “freedom and equality for all” that was founded by slave-owners who would have laughed at the suggestion that women should be able to vote.
At the least, if you vote for a racist, their racism isn’t a deal-breaker for you. Perhaps their racism is not overt enough to dissuade you from voting for them. And if they are sexist as well as racist? And transphobic?
Because the contradiction exists, there must be ways of rationalizing our own behavior and the behaviors of others.
If I asked you if you would expect someone who is racist to make racist jokes, you would, I presume, answer in the affirmative. But if Trump makes a racist (sexist, ableist, etc. etc etc) joke, people will say, oh—he’s just joking.
Trump has at least promised mass deportations. The majority of my closest friends are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. At the same time, there are people I love who voted for Trump.
Barack Obama didn’t overcome his refusal to believe same sex couples had a right to get married and have children during his first term as president by being told he was a bad person. He overcame it by exposure to same-sex couples with children with whom he associated at his daughter’s school. If those same-sex couple with children had refused to associate with him, Obama would never have had the chance to change his mind.
But who expects Trump to change his mind about any ideological matter. And when I have talked with those I love about Trump, its as if I’m not even speaking.
Those who vote for Republicans see the Democrats as representing the status quo just as much as those who vote for Democrats see the Republicans as representing the status quo. Using the vaguest possible mantra of empowerment, “Yes We Can”, Obama represented, both to those who voted for him and those who voted against him, the official acceptance of alterity in mainstream politics.
Obama did a number of wonderful things as president. Overall his messaging was more about hope than fear. But Obama’s politics are closer to those of George W. Bush than they are to mine. Several people close to Trump have said that it was Obama’s humiliation of Trump at the White House correspondents dinner that motivated Trump to enter politics and become the Republican nominee.
Whether or not this is true I do not know, but I am sure it is true in Trump’s self-narrative, and is certainly consistent with Trump’s ego-maniacal behavior. I can’t blame Obama for Trump running for president, of course. It is clear, however, that the Trump presidency was in many ways a reaction to the Obama presidency.
I have sometimes wondered what would have happened if Clinton had run for president instead in 2008, and then a more experienced Obama had run in 2016. We might have had four consecutive Democratic terms. Our Supreme Court would not be one of the most radically conservative supreme courts in US history. Climate change policies might have been enacted to the extent that no Republican president could do anything to prevent a shift to a greener economy. Minorities of all kinds might have many more possibilities in their lives. That is not what happened though.
The last time Trump was elected, it felt unreal. This time it feels all too real. We no longer need the hundreds of articles and books that were written to explain to us how it came to be that Trump became president the first time. We need to figure out how to be our healthiest selves so that we can do what we can ourselves and others. I want to do all I can as a writer, chef, student, friend, and human to support those in need during the next four years.
My hope is that Trump’s policies will allow a powerful counter-cultural movement to coalesce. And enough people will be able to recognize how damaging those policies are for the vast majority of the people in this country and the other people and beings we share the world with. I do not know if the lowest-earning 99% of US citizens will ever recognize that if they worked together they would no longer have to be exploited by the 1%. But I can hope.