I’ll likely be returning to the events of the past week (or is it the past decade? or the last five hundred years) in a later post, but for now, I’m full of thankfulness for my communities, including this one.
How are you feeling, and what’s on your mind as this massive chunk of our shared future falls into place?
Art: Marshes in New Jersey by Henry Ossawa Tanner
As a Canadian, shocked that a convicted felon, who makes such derogatory remarks about others could be elected president. I’m also worried how his Presidency will affect world events – the war in the Ukraine, Gaza, Nato, and efforts to ameliorate climate change and protect the environment.
Me too. Also worried about immigrants and US government workers, who must be suffering huge anxiety right now
As an American, I am equally shocked.
I’m gravely concerned about those things too.
I am hopeful a new administration will be working to end these needless wars. Too many innocent lives have been lost to fuel the military-industrial complex.
I’d like to be hopeful about that, but I fear it’s going to be the reverse.
Going through the stages of grief like a CD player on random. I don’t recognize this America anymore.
I like that image of grief, yeah, it’s all skipping…
I wish I could say I don’t recognize this America, but it’s always been a part (or even mostly) who we really are. It’s up to all of us to keep working to change that.
Yeah, I totally hear you. I guess what I meant is those parts seemed more on the fringes. It seemed, especially with the presidency, we would vote to find our common ground–places where we overlapped. It doesn’t mean those places were just or right (they were frequently homophobic, misogynistic, racist…etc.), but they represented the misguided consensus of the times. Funnily enough, if we’re all behind an injustice, at least our elected officials represent our collective voice. A good leader/activist/movement could work to move us toward our better selves. Those wrongs felt like they could be changed and worked on through dialogue and education, and we’ve made such strides to be aware of (and rectify) the white supremacy and oppression of marginalized groups that are a part of America’s shameful past. As a member of an immigrant family who never heard such hatred and xenophobia spewed so openly during a presidential election (in my lifetime), I have of course experienced intolerance, but again, from parts of America. Maybe that’s just what I told myself to help feel safe–that it came from the fringes and that we were moving away from it– not stubbornly entrenched in it.
Now it seems there’s a desire for domination, those who want a dictator to rule from an intolerant, chaotic place on the fringe. That’s what feels unrecognizable–a majority who desire to turn away from democratic principles and “own” those who disagree. I always felt the country was moving toward something better. Maybe this is more of an awakening for me–seeing more clearly what’s always been there. I haven’t given up, but this disenfranchisement and disorientation are where my heart is this week.
Thanks for your comment, writing this has really helped me clarify my thoughts and feelings 🙂
Yeah absolutely, I agree with you about the impact of leadership. He really emboldens people to be their worst selves and summons demons out from under rocks that need to stay there. I think whether America is a place that’s improving toward something approaching its supposed ideals or reverting to its true self is constantly an open question. We’ve swung one way on the pendulum and I can only hope it’s temporary.
I appreciate your thoughtful comments!
Great metaphor
I believe despair is accurate.
Despair, grieve, but come back when you’re ready!
This election definitely seems to prove the “reality is stranger than fiction” rule, doesn’t it? At least in our writing, we try to make people’s choices make sooooome kind of sense.
If you’d written this as a novel ten years ago, no one would have believed it.
No kidding, that’s so true.
I’m feeling like I want to burn it all down. I’m feeling really sad that a huge number of my fellow Americans appears to place little importance on women’s rights and health. I’m feel terrified about our future. I’m trying to breathe and focus on what I can control but I’m grieving hard.
The grief alone is hot enough to burn things down.
Very, very concerned about the blatant hate, hypocrisy, and lack of accountability. Super disappointed and worried. Feel like we’ve forgotten all the immense hurtles it’s taken us to land where we are now-in a time of opportunity, abundance, and empathy towards other humans. Discouraged we’ve succumbed to baser instincts and media hype. Worried about the country’s collective IQ, honestly.
I also am disappointed that someone who emboldens people to embrace their worst selves gets another time at the top to unleash the darkness.
Tired–very tired…
I’m 60 years old. Despair doesn’t even come close to what I’m feeling. I’m disgusted with America and fear the Project 2025 shift will never allow for true democracy again. So we’re getting all our passport docs in order and prepping our house to put on the market. All I want now is to GTFO of here. I’m lucky to have someone in Australia willing to sponsor me, and my husband qualifies for a Skilled Independent Visa.
We. Are. Done.
Lucky! I want someone in Australia to sponsor me! Glad you are getting out.
Canada’s closer.
Oh wow! Best of luck with this big change, that’s amazing.
I can understand your motivation, but do be aware that social media misinformation spreads worldwide and the tentacles are piercing skulls here too.
I feel lucky to live in Australia, but know it is only a matter of time before we face a similar situation – interference in our electoral process (foreign and internal).
Australia is a vast place, desired by many, and awareness of the social issues we are trying to address, helps to live here and make a contribution.
Ugh. Feeling a lot of sadness today. Not as much because the candidate I voted for lost, but because of the state of our country. I still cannot believe over half of our citizens would vote for a convicted felon, rapist, and horrible role model for our children. I am fearful about what could transpire in the next four years and how those decisions will affect the future of not only our country, but the rest of the world.
It’s really genuinely very seriously wild.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one. I’m trying not to despair but I don’t know what to do and it’s frightening. Do my fellow Americans know what they’ve done? Can they be so evil? I don’t believe they are. I think they’ve been lied to, they drank the Kool-Aid and they are lost. But that doesn’t help.
And I want to add, thank you for asking. I’m grateful for all of the comments, too.
Unfortunately I think people do know what they’ve done and they’ve actively signed up for it. Not a comforting thought, but it’s so disheartening that we’ll now reap what that majority has sown, in particular the most vulnerable among us.
Feeling better than I did, after going to a vigil, sitting in solidarity with others, singing spirituals and recognizing I am not alone. The question I have in return is: How is this going to affect what gets published? Will there be a chilling effect on, say, fantasy fiction?
Good question, and I think it’s early to tell. I’ve already heard rumors that there’s been a chill over “risky” children’s books because of fears of book bans and whether they’ll get stocked in adequate numbers in schools and libraries. If book bans gain speed under the new administration, I don’t really have much faith that publishers will pay attention to anything other than their bottom line.
Constantly reverberating in my mind are:
“I’ll Be A Dictator On Day One.” “Promises Made, Promises Kept.”
Didn’t The Brute also say something like, “All I Need Is For You To Vote Just Once.”
I hope that’s just because he can’t run again, but at this point who knows.
That is 100% not what he meant. Perhaps that’s the denial stage of grief talking, which I don’t begrudge you ;). But as some of the few critical thinkers left in the country, it’s up to those of us on the left to stop taking sadness walks in the woods and pointing fingers at one another, and start using that energy to oppose evil in the only way we have left: We outMAGA MAGA. What does that entail? First, we circle up on the leaders of our party and defend them with blood, sweat, and tears instead of writing take down pieces of the entire Democratic apparatus. Next, we circle the wagons around the most vulnerable in our communities and help them live outside the long arm of the law, if necessary. But mostly, we sit back and do nothing…except blame them for every single problem they caused.
As a disabled and immunocompromised 9/11 survivor fighting terminal cancer with a neurodivergent Mexican-American husband and son, I know my family is in the crosshairs of the incoming administration. I barely survived Trump’s first term, and I’m pretty sure this one will kill me. So if I’m going down because of this country’s indifference, selfishness, and ignorance, I’m letting them know it’s their fucking fault. And I’m not shedding a single, solitary tear when it happens to them.
So how am I feeling? Terrified. Furious. Worthless. Empty. Bitter. Vindictive. Vindictive to the 1000th power. That’s the only thing bringing me comfort right now. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to shove their smug faces in the consequences of their demise before I meet my own. But probably not.
Stunned and sickened. In choir practice last night the woman beside me sobbed through the music. I envied her the release of tears. My strategy is to be kind, keep my head down (I have lost trust in my fellow citizens), do good work. And pray.
My response is usually to keep my head down and working too. But yeah, maybe some kind of an emotional release is in order. Might scare my neighbors with a primal scream.
Sadness, despair, fear for marginalized groups, Ukrainians, all the things. I’m disappointed that people aren’t talking about what I see as the elephant in the room. He’s a creep, even many of his supporters would agree. Still, better to hire a creep than a girl. When he beat Hillary they said it was because she was a flawed candidate, but many of us knew what was really going on. Now it’s clear as day, and I’m deeply disappointed that I will probably never see a woman become president because our country is just too damn sexist.
Ugh yeah, marginalized groups, Ukraine…. It’s just unfathomable.
Hello from the UK. Worried for women the world over. How can this have happened? Recommend listening to BBC Radio 4 online for some sane reaction. Love Henry O. Tanner’s faint beacons of hope, thanks for that Nathan.
Henry O. Tanner was such an amazing person and artist. A true trailblazer. I’m lucky that one of his best works is on loan at the Huntington Library and get to see it often. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daniel_in_the_Lions%27_Den_LACMA_22.6.3.jpg
I went through a range of emotions—anger, disappointment,depression, the belief that people are going to get what they deserve (higher prices, fewer civil rights, no consideration for the individual and what they want to do with their own body, etc) and then remembered that I’m going to have to suffer all those things too.
Now I’m just grateful that I’m a romance writer and can easily escape into my own little world and not have to think of anything else.
I’m thankful for the escape in writing and books too.
I suppose we’re all doing a quick run through the stages of grief. I’m dismayed at fellow Americans wanting a felon, fraud, rapist as their leader. They laughed at his misogynistic joke, his racist jokes, they cheered his threats…I’m lost on how I feel. Dismayed, I guess. Thanks for putting out this question.
Dismayed is the word. Definitely. We should be better than this. We’re not. (Yet?)
Yes I can’t even…
On the other hand, I think God pulled one of his tricks, answering the prayers of both sides, in a weird way.
I was worried what would happen if he lost–Jan 6th on steroids, violence everywhere. So now that didn’t happen. Many in Congress will be worried about reelection so he doesn’t have carte blanche unless he does what he threatens and voids the Constitution.
I’ll see how things look in 2 years after the election. I live roughly 8 hours drive from Mexico 🇲🇽 !
I am relieved we were spared violence. Bracing for what’s next.
(This thread is very lovely.)
Amid the rage, hurt, sadness, confusion…I have this mix of guilt and fear, since my privilege creates some padding for me and many of my loved ones. There are so many who don’t have that padding. After the wound licking subsides, I want to find ways I can act as a supporter, anchor, ally, fighter for those who will live in existential fear and uncertainty and/or suffer life-changing consequences in the coming days.
Not sure what that looks like exactly, but I’d love to hear ideas from others on their own plans to help the more vulnerable among us.
Acting as a supporter, anchor, ally, fighter is all the privileged can really do, right? I personally believe in either joining, supporting, or starting organizations, because collective action and coalition building is how power is built and change actually happens.
Within our little corner of the world, I’m a big fan of We Need Diverse Books as an organization that’s working to foster a more equitable future for books and publishing, but there are lots of possibilities out there.
I already felt on the edge of a cliff, clinging to a tree. Now, rather than a rope, it feels as though the person who stands and looks down is holding an ax.
It certainly feels like a precarious moment…
Surreal is what I’m mostly feeling. I have a horrible cold, so that numbness is keeping me from worrying too much. My strategy is #1 don’t watch the news and #2 be kind, caring. Smile. Hold doors open for people. Continue being me. And believe in the good of people, even if they voted differently than I did. I think many of us are confused, bewildered, and don’t know what to do next.
Stand tall. We’ll get through this together.
Thank you for this forum to express how we’re feeling.
Stand tall is always good advice, thank you for sharing! And hope you feel better!
Hi,
Coming in late from another timezone and a self-imposed media pause.
Recently I read ‘The Trees’ by Percival Everett, watched ‘I Am Not Your Negro’ by James Baldwin, and saw a photo essay by Michael Dressel, ‘Things are truely scary’: the divided states of America, in The Guardian UK edition – all show how creative people contribute to understanding the world. And as I’m often baffled, I’m grateful they’ve put in the work.
There’s a lot of energy pouring out at the moment, we can put it to good use.
All the best.
I hope we can harness the energy too. And that sounds like a great lineup of art to have engaged with.
Thanks for encouraging discussion of our election trauma in this space, Nathan. In all my recent conversations with like-minded (and dismayed) folks, we have pledged to stay alert, be prepared to speak out, and continue our efforts to feed the hungry, house the homeless, care for the sick, and welcome the stranger. To support each other. And to keep on creating.
Well said, that’s what we gotta do.
All of the above. I vacillate from grief to anger to determination to fight this man (and his corporate and political partners) – and the insanity they have wrought – until my very last breath.
One of the things to understand is how completely the far-right media has poisoned the brains of the people who voted for the guy who lies as easily as he breathes. We all have that friend or relative who “really is a nice guy if you didn’t know his political leanings”. That’s a big part of what makes this so heartbreaking. I’m not making excuses for his followers – common sense and basic decency alone should make DJT repellent. But they’re also being manipulated and fed 24 x 7 news feeds and podcasts of sanitized and edited clips of information from far right media. (7 of the top 20 podcast are far right propaganda machines.) And the so-called mainstream media has sane-washed DJT this entire election cycle, holding him to an entirely different standard than Biden or Kamala. This information pollution is a root stock issue that we need to acknowledge and battle. But it’s also a cautionary tale; if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere in the world.
I hope to rally eventually and get back in the fight. Use my brain and facility with words for good. For now I’m exhausted and emotionally depleted. And my husband is not supporting my idea of an emotional support donkey. Yet.
The fragmentation of the media space really boggles the mind. Even setting aside the poison people are putting in their ears, it feels so invisible, I don’t know anyone (with the possible exception of Taylor Lorenz, Elle Reeve and a few other journalists) who feel like the have a handle on just what’s going on out there.
(Psst I hope you get that donkey)
I might be able to speak semi-intelligently on this. I’m a former journalist who worked at NBC Bay Area when I was in Stanford’s graduate journalism program. What happened in corporate media was inevitable, unfortunately. It’s the effect of continued mergers among news organizations after the 1996 Telecommunications Act deregulated the industry, allowing for the consolidation of all mass messaging into the hands of just five or six owners. And when those owners are billionaires, their political leanings tend to skew right, especially when being offered massive tax cuts. So they kill thoughtful investigations in favor of ratings. They determine that the best way to be objective is to give equal weight to both sides, even when one side is telling the truth and the other is denying climate change is real, flying in the face of 99.999% of scientists. And they refrain from making judgments, which means they end up offering information without context or analysis.
Social media was born out of this landscape, which at first served to democratize media but soon enough, thanks to greed, resulted in algorithms that favor engagement, a euphemism for conflict. This drove a wedge between diverse views on the internet instead of allowing for thoughtful discourse, so people retreated to echo chamber silos while being hammered with disinformation. And then Elon Musk bought Twitter, fired content moderators, and welcomed back white nationalists, Nazi sympathizers, sexual predators, and Trump.
When you have the #1 “news” network as a propaganda arm of the conservative cause, and the #1 social media platform throttling (aka blocking) all content critical of Trump while disseminating Russian disinformation, plus the podcast industry dominated by right wing “influencers,” you’re playing a losing game with the American public. It’s my belief the Democrats didn’t fail on messaging or grassroots efforts or any of their press appearances. The media failed Americans for refusing to accurately portray Trump as the threat that he is.
The voices that I trust now aren’t at the Washington Post or the New York Times. It’s the independent media landscape where I believe we can make a difference. Back when Rush Limbaugh was the king of talk radio, Al Gore tried to start a liberal media network to compete with Fox and the like. It failed miserably because it wasn’t much different from traditional media at the time. Today, MeidasTouch Network seems to be succeeding where Gore failed. I highly recommend sticking with the following voices of truth and justice: MeidasTouch, ProPublica, The New Yorker, Luke Beasley, Brian Tyler Cohen, The Bulwark. You can find all but ProPub and The New Yorker on YouTube, as well as all podcast platforms. Let’s fire up the progressive arm of the media and grow, grow, grow until we can’t be ignored again!
I agree with your overall analysis, though I’m personally not sure how much it mattered that media like the Washington Post or New York Times failed to portray Trump accurately and constantly held Democrats to higher standards. I agree that they fell down on the job and I canceled my Washington Post subscription accordingly, but I’m not sure it really mattered very much from an electoral standpoint when the real ballgame right now is outside of the traditional media ecosystem entirely.
I also am a big fan of ProPublica and The New Yorker and continue to support them.
When I’m out, I find myself looking around and wondering who voted for Trump. I’m angry. I’m afraid for my gay daughter and it breaks my heart that she feels like more than half the country doe not value her as a fellow citizen with rights. I feel helpless and honestly, embarrassed to be an American.
I’m sorry for that burden. We’re not in it alone even though it feels that way sometimes.
❤️
The first group of MAGA groupies in 2016, led by Bannon, sounded like names out of a Dickens novel, and it looks like we’ll be looking at more literary HARD TIMES characters soon, with a lot more to come )-:
Trump
Vance (replacing Pence)
Wiles
Musk
Junior (Trump and Kennedy)
LaCivita
Lighthizer
Leavitt
Cotton
Waltz
Pompeo
Ha I hadn’t thought about how Dickensian those names are. You can’t make it up.
Americans are not alone in this Dark Age. Social Democratic (NOT Socialist) countries in Europe have been veering Right since Covid and the first Trump era. And recently, crowds are cheering the return of this despicable being. My daughter made her home in New York 24 years ago – without giving up her Austrian citizenship. I’ve been persuading her to pack up and come back home – even as I realize that she’s stuck between a rock and an abyss. We, in Europe, also suffer from this unfortunate phenomenon. We share your grief.
Really shocked myself. All of us sharing it right now. No words to explain what all I feel.