On Tuesday, the 8th, I
fell asleep, apprehensive about the future. I had recounted my story of Thom
Tillis to a friend of mine the night before as an example of the premonition I
was feeling. For those unfamiliar with the man, Thom Tillis is a Tea Party
endorsed Republican US Senator. When Thom Tillis ran in the Republican Senate
primary in North Carolina, I joked that I should go vote for him (I didn’t). I thought that if he won the primary, not
many would be crazy enough to vote for him in the general election. Next thing
I know, he is the junior senator from North Carolina. Thus, I learned my lesson
early about putting misguided assumptions.
The morning of November 9th, I got a message
from Matthieu, telling me he was sorry, and that I shouldn’t do anything dumb
or drastic with my passport. This was probably the best way for me to find out
that Donald Trump was going to be the next president of the United States. The
rest of that week, teachers and fellow students responded in a mostly
compassionate and caring way. A professor (from the UK) who had helped me with
a set of statistical analyses found me during his lunch break to chat. My
teachers all had a few kind words, and classmates were as empathetic as they
were interested. I took a moment to warn them. The impending elections in
Germany, France, and The Netherlands mean that they will soon face a similar
decision. In reality, warning others was all I could do, since I was walking
around in a haze of disbelief.
I am certainly still feeling a mix
of emotions regarding this topic. I am glad that I went and voted- the guilt
would be insurmountable if I hadn’t. I am bewildered that we managed to miss what
such a large percentage of the country apparently was thinking and feeling. I
am certainly concerned about the future, particularly when it comes to the
environment, our democratic processes, increasing corruption, and the rights of
individuals.
One piece of advice I have read is
that we shouldn’t despair, because that is the worst that we can do. Another
that I have read is that it would be a grave error to take what has happened as
anything less than real. Every bad thing we imagine is possible and we should
imagine them all. This reminds me of a
conundrum I have had for a few years now.
I think we have a tendency to grow
up hopeful in the United States, which is not always a bad thing. I always had
the feeling that I can be whatever I want to be, within reason, as long as I
work hard at it. As I attempt to formulate a career, I am making more nuanced,
but similar assumptions. What steps do I have to take to have success in
whatever I want to take on next? How did those other people who have already
arrived where I want to be do these things? What is unique or different about
the path I want to take? When I look
back at history, however, I see that everyone had a to-do list, then they went
into some conflict or other blindly, and their plans were derailed.
All of this makes me ask myself, is
“hope” actually code for “lying to ourselves about the reality of the
situation”? As a disclaimer, this is not a message written so that I can get on my millennial
soapbox and complain. My generation is
not a lucky one, even if it is often entitled “entitled” (pun intended). Globalization hit
everyone the years before we were born, then the great recession arrived, which
came around just as many young people went to college or tried to get a first
job. Even for those who have a job, earnings are lower than they had been for
their parents and are projected to remain that way. At the same time, the
environment is falling to pieces, world conflict feels like it’s at a lifetime
high, and social safety nets are in bad shape. And on top of this, Brexit and
Donald Trump paint a rather worrisome picture. I am here, on the ground, and I
can tell you that this is a generation of rising inequality and frustration.
Debt, economic strife, and current events are all culminating to tell a group
of people that even if they work hard, they’re probably still not going to make it, or at least not with the same ease or
benefits as those before them.
Which leads me back to... are we,
my generation, going to be left to clean up the messes of the current Trump administration?
Of course we are. The question is, “How will we do that?” There appear to be
two lines of discourse- here’s how we are
doomed/everything is horrible, and here’s
how you can help/let’s stop calling this a catastrophe. Will we remain
apprehensive of the reality of the situation, the very real risks that this new
world order poses for all of us? Or will we rush into this challenge blindly
hopeful, never giving into despair? Why are these two things mutually
exclusive? Does acknowledging one negate the other? If anything, after the dust
of the election has cleared a bit, I see people discussing these two sides of a
matter, but often only one at a time.
I’m not a political or economic
expert- I’m just a 24-year-old living across the Atlantic Ocean, watching
something pretty terrifying come increasingly close to me at exactly the same
time as I am meant to be taking my future into my own hands with the utmost of
agency. This is all I have. When I was younger and people asked me if I saw the
glass half empty or half full, whether I was a pessimist or an optimist, I
always responded that I was a realistic optimist. Perhaps this is the tone I
need to take now.
The realism: I acknowledge that
things are bad, that they are going to get worse, and that democracy is
probably threatened under the ignorant and oligarchical actions of a rich,
greedy man like Donald Trump. He has
appointed equally ignorant and rich plutocrats to positions around him, who
will most likely act the same way as he has, and they will all get even more
wealthy off of the American people. In the meantime, he will feed America a big bowl of heart-blackening chicken noode lies and hatred. There is almost nothing we can do about
this.
The optimism: Maybe if we all get
our act together on an individual level, things will get better in our
individual communities. If we speak out in local forums where we have more power,
support organizations that are doing the right thing, and reach out to each
other (and our planet), surely our smaller ecosystems will remain somewhat
intact. I insist that in institutional and systemic issues, we should keep
fighting for those less fortunate, the environment, and for the inherent value of integrity… but more than anything: we should be kind to each other when our
first impulse is to be cruel. Forgiveness, patience, and understanding will
have their strongest impact at the time when they feel hardest to give, and
that time may as well be now.
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