It’s Wednesday, November 6, 2024. Donald Trump is president-elect. The sun rose in the east and a light rain trickled on my windshield as I drove to the gym. I received an email from work saying that it is “Stress Awareness Day”. That brings a smile to my face. I listen to the radio to feel moored to some form of sanity. Trying my best to make sense of our present moment. I read a few articles in The Times to affect the same clarity. Surprisingly, they help. I feel a bit more resolve. The spirit of credulity takes me, and I perform that most masochistic act: logging on to Facebook.
I’m from southern Indiana. And though I’ve moved away in the past and have since returned, it has never left my sense of identity. I love it. I love it for its beauty as well as its people. It is honest and often contradictory. If you go to the store, some people will ignore you, but most smile and nod. It reminds me of the character Samuel Hamilton from one of my most cherished novels, East of Eden. The quote comes at a most poignant moment in the book when Samuel is talking to Adam, one of the central figures, about his decision to leave his home in the Salinas Valley. “’I love that dust heap,’ Samuel said. ‘I love it the way a bitch loves her runty pup. I love every flint, the plow-breaking outcroppings, the thin and barren top-soil, the waterless heart of her. Somewhere in my dust heap there’s a richness.’” For Samuel, his love for a place wasn’t so much for what he could take from it, but what it gave. And so too is my love for this place.
But, like Samuel, I am not blind to her difficulties. I too am often frustrated by the rocky tilth of discord and the arid soils of hypocrisy. By the dust clouds of close-mindedness masquerading as close-knittedness. And maybe, because that is what I’ve grown upon, I love her the more. Yet, as I log in to see what my community has to say; my love is betrayed.
Here is a list of the first three comments I see concerning the election: “After tonight, I never want to see her face or hear her laugh ever again”, “We don’t have to hear her laugh again”, “To all of you about to unfriend me: TRUMP 2024!”. I believe in a fair and free democracy, and, despite it all, I don’t think that is too radical of a bar for our country. I want to hear the other’s opinion; I wouldn’t have been able to maintain as many lasting friendships as I have if I weren’t able to. Debate and discourse are what makes America great and not some Brezhnev-era regime. But…why the spite? Why the anger? I live across the street from a lovely couple that I know staunchly supports Donald Trump, and, had they asked, I would have gladly driven them to the polls to vote for him. That is what neighbors do. What neighbors don’t do, however, is attempt to demean and degrade. To use objectively offensive language just to piss off the other person. It is callow and classless.
Right now, so many people view American politics as some sort of sport. Zero-sum. Win-or-lose. But that is not how I think we should view it. I prefer, maybe idealistically, to view it the way I view my own family dynamics. For instance, my sister and I have argued all our lives about any number of different issues. Sometimes rather vehemently to the point where we don’t talk to each other for several days. Despite that, I still love her. I want the best for her. Our arguments don’t diminish our shared sense of family. We can be adamant about our positions and still show up for Thanksgiving. Our country shouldn’t be treated like a Hoosiers versus Boilermakers mid-January grudge match. The only people that win in that case are our adversaries. So, if you voted for Donald Trump—congratulations. Though he did not earn my vote, he will still be my president come January 20th. Sure, I have concerns about where this leaves us economically, in terms of foreign policy, even about the state of our democracy, but so would his supporters had the tides been turned. That is America. That doesn’t make you or I the enemy, that just means we disagree. Some hard questions have to be asked, some hard truths learned, but at the end of the day, we should all be able to agree upon one thing: somewhere in this dust heap there’s a richness.
THE WAYFARER 