"They killed us, but they ain't whupped us yet."
William Faulkner
I'm coming to this late and sloppy because these last few days I've been reading everything I can about the election. The election is over and I was on the wrong side of the mason-dixon line.
It's hard to write on this topic, and express my paranoid fears without upsetting people. I think the American people, were trying to solve a genuine problem, big money and self serving political corruption. I think they were dealt a bad hand. I think things are headed in a bad direction, but that's just me. I may be wrong.
I don't know what to think anymore of pundits and political writing. I mayjust give them all up after this, The way the polls, even the much revered 568 of Nate Silver, were seriously skunked. Its inexplicable. The Russians? Was the election actually rigged, but in Trumps favor? Paranoia blossoms.
And yet and yet and yet, I can't wait to read the books that will come out, the explaining, the back pedaling, those shameless talking hairdos who claim they alone saw it coming before everyone else and so on.
I look at this whole thing and I wonder - does God exist?
Here is a man, so spiritually damaged, so psychologically deformed, and yet by sheer force of personality he pushed the thing through to the ultimate end as though, like Doctor Strange, he commanded levels of reality inaccessible to lesser mortals. How is this possible? Are there multiple universes? Wasn't my dentist's office on the fourth floor as I remember and this afternoon I found it on the third? What Universe is this? Can I choose another?
I am an escapist at heart. I write escapist stuff, and I mostly enjoy reading escapist stuff. In my life, when stressful forces become too hard to bear gracefully. When others turn to marijuana, I turn to comic books. Or Science Fiction. Or old pulp magazine stories. Or erotic anthologies. Something hairy chested, ridiculous and absorbing. Throbbing nipples and stiffened giblets. These are what I think of as the "spiritual comic book" defense, because they serve an odd spiritual purpose of delivering me to other worlds when this one sucks the big one. It gets me through. I'm very grateful to my literary heroes who have gotten me through hard times like these. Don't ever think the genre you write in doesn't serve a higher purpose for somebody out there.
I think for tonight, as soon as I finish dashing this off, I'm going to lay down naked and read a couple of Wonder Woman graphic novels. We'll see what comes up.
In the 60's we wanted a revolution. Well, here it is, in all its glory. The wrong side was granted its charismatic leader. If you even want to call it charisma. Maybe it's hate. Hate is a powerful motivator.
ReplyDeleteCross your fingers. Pray. Whatever you call it. How could this country be so stupid? Question answered last night. Sigh...
Trump's supporters might be motivated by hate (which he was expert at fanning), but I think he's motivated purely by ego. Astonishing.
DeleteOne thing you have to admit, its amazing. People are trying to solve a real problem and this was the answer offered to them, a kind of miracle figure. Someone commented to me that we live in a superhero culture. Popular culture in movies ans TV are are always the story the single combat warrior who will step in straighten everything out at a time when we feel failed by institutions and slow slogging processes. We step up this false image of how things work. I hope it swings back the other way someday.
DeleteGarce
One thing I've learned from this election is that other people really do live in totally different realities. The people who voted for Trump exist in a world I can barely imagine. I think that Clinton lost because SHE didn't understand this.
ReplyDeleteBTW I think there's huge value in escapism. Enjoy your spiritual comic books. We learn from them, too.
DeleteI don't think many of us understood this. This election has been a huge primal scream of people who feel left behind and for whom the world is changing too fast. Some of us like change, thrive on it. Others just get weary with trying to keep up with it while the stability of their lives and cultures are torn to pieces. Its hard for those of us with stable lives to understand the heart of those whose seen their world change way too much too fast.
DeleteGarce
I'm still obsessively reading posts and essays and cries in the dark about the election. Viewed in terms of two sides--but can it be seen as two sides when, as in most battles, they're not fighting over the same things? I see so much legitimate fear and outrage over bigotry and misogyny and the whole list, and how-can-they-vote-that-way-unless-they-hate-us, while on the other side they don't see the issue as being about those things, but about legitimate matters of not being respected, about the world changing and leaving them behind without decent jobs and nobody caring about their problems, and inequality, and being despised by a smug urban elite. I can mourn for all of us. Granted, it's hard to feel respect for anyone who believes that the new president-elect cares anything about them or would know how to do anything about their problems even if he cared, but I can sympathize with their desperate need for hope. When their hope is dashed, though, things are going to be even worse.
ReplyDeleteI've never been in therapy, could have used it, but my understanding is that people have these moments where the dark stuff reveals itself and has to be confronted. I know in Buddhism, the dark stuff is the stuff you have to come to terms with at some point in your journey. IF this stuff has always been under the surface, quietly posioning our culture, maybe it has to be brought out into the light and confronted. That's howI try to look at it anyway.
DeleteGarce
"express my paranoid fears without upsetting people"
ReplyDeleteI don't think you have to worry. People are pretty upset all by themselves.
It's breathtaking what's going on already, the corrupt moves and the incompetence.
I think that what happened was that people intuitively knew that voting for Trump would be seen as reprehensible (because it is...) and so they didn't tell the truth when polled. When the polls are off, no one can make predictions work out.
I was reading obsessively leading up to the election, too. Now I'm trying to figure out what to read and what to do. It's tough stuff.
I hope you enjoyed your Wonder Woman. There's a real need for that sort of relief.
Presumably Wonder Woman was an immortal Amazon warrior who sided with the Allies in WW2. If we have to have a larger-than-life solitary warrior, she's a good choice!
ReplyDelete"When their hope is dashed, though, things are going to be even worse." That's what I'm thinking too. When that day comes, I wonder if Trump's former supporters will know whom to blame, or if they will intensify their scapegoating of everyone who isn't a white, straight man.