How Do We Go On?

In these dark first days after Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris, I want to acknowledge your pain, your fears, your despair. 

My heart today goes out to those who have the most at risk right now: the undocumented, and the families of the undocumented, working in our midst and who keep our economy going; the trans folks, who were so demonized by Donald Trump and Eric Hovde.

We need to wrap them all in our arms today.

And my heart goes out to any woman who has been sexually abused, and now has to look at a convicted sex offender in the White House. You shouldn’t have to face that every day.

And I feel for older progressive women, who longed to see a woman president in their lifetime only to wake up the day after the election with the glass ceiling still there, now seemingly reinforced with steel.

I also feel for older progressive men, who see almost everything they’ve ever worked for now going down the tubes.

And I feel for our young activists, who threw themselves into this campaign once Joe Biden dropped out, only to face repudiation at the polls. For them, it must be like going to their first funeral.

And I feel for Mother Earth, who is even in more in peril today than she was the day before the votes were counted.

So how do we go on?

First, we need to take care of ourselves, and each other. 

Turn off your cable TV and give it a rest for a while. You won’t find nourishment there — only more anxiety and nausea.

Spend time with friends, as my wife and I did the night after the election and in subsequent days.

Gain sustenance from art or music or poetry.

And give yourself a break, or a pause, as the marvelous essayist Terry Tempest Williams put it a while ago: “To feel the pain of now and not look away. To act not with the hope of moving forward, always forward, but to see the wisdom of stepping sideways as we create a different space, a more conscious space in the direction of pause, where we can breathe and gather ourselves so we can gather others around us and create a community of care.”

I love Terry Tempest Williams, and yes, we must build that “community of care.”

Also, try to get yourself into nature, at least for a few minutes a day, if you can.

Here’s the great Kentucky poet, Wendell Berry, with his wise poem, “The Peace of Wild Things,” which he wrote during the Vietnam War:

“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

Going into the woods and watching birds always calms me down and charges me up. So thank you, Wendell Berry, for the advice. He just turned 90, by the way, and he’s still at it.

It’s also helpful to look back at other difficult moments, even relatively recent ones, to understand that politics is a continual struggle, and that our gains are not linear.

I’ve gotten my teeth kicked in so many times I hardly have any teeth left, but I keep on shouting.

I was a young journalist working for Ralph Nader in Washington, DC, when Ronald Reagan swept to power, and I was terrified that he was going to blow up the world.

Then, after I came to Wisconsin, we tried our hardest to beat Scott Walker in the recall election, and then again in his reelection bid, and we got spanked both times.

I was on TV the night that Donald Trump won the first time, and when Paul Ryan said, “It’s a good night for America,” I turned to my friend on the set and said, “It’s more like, goodnight, America.”

So, as Kamala Harris said in her concession speech, “I get it.” It’s tough right now. 

But we must regroup, re-gather, re-think, and carry on.

One way to start carrying on is to listen to Howard Zinn, the author of “A People’s History of the United States,” who wrote for me at The Progressive magazine in his later years.

This famous quote of his has been on our fridge, off and on, for 20 years now:

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

…If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. To live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” 

So yes, as Zinn tells us, let’s celebrate those who came before us and let’s live now as we think we should live. 

Zinn’s advice is echoed by Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident and poet who later became president. Havel called this “living within the truth,” but not giving in to it.

The truth right now is we have a fascist president. But we don’t have to bow down to him. We can live our lives with dignity and honor. And we must resist him, and we must try to reach at least some of our fellow citizens who voted for him.

Not all of them are in the cult. Not all of them are flying Confederate flags. In fact, most of them aren’t. We need to talk with them, listen to them, and gradually try to bring them around.

As Timothy Snyder, the author of “On Tyranny,” wrote after Trump won the first time: “Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them….Courage does not mean not fearing, or not grieving. It does mean resisting right away.”

We can resist in a whole variety of ways.

We can write letters to the editor.

We can call in to rightwing radio shows.

We can join a good group, like the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, or the ACLU of Wisconsin, or Common Cause Wisconsin, or the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, or Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, or Voces de la Frontera, or Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, or FAIR Wisconsin, or the myriad other progressive nonprofits that are doing so much good in this state. 

If you’re in a union, become active in it.

If you’re not in a union, try to organize one in your workplace.

If you’re a member of a church or a synagogue or a mosque, become part of the social justice group within it, or form such a group.

But you can’t do it alone. Do it with a friend, especially one who’s a good cook and has a delightful sense of humor. It’s more sustainable that way.

Most importantly, after you’ve recharged your batteries, do something. Get back engaged.

Like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, after the election, “Never ever think that one choice or any act of yours is too small. Autocracies are taken down by billions of drops of small actions that would otherwise be invisible.”

So we need to swamp them with our billion drops of small actions.

But we’ll also need to swamp them with large actions.

We must be prepared to shelter those who are most at risk, and that means the undocumented, the trans, and any political foes that Donald Trump goes after. 

We must be prepared to march, in the streets, to protest any of the fascist moves that Trump makes.

We must be prepared to engage in strikes – the broader, the better.

We need to build a vast progressive mass movement to counter the fascist mass movement and blunt Trump.

We also need to return to the electoral arena. Here in Wisconsin, we made significant gains in the state legislature, thanks to the fairer maps that we got, after a long struggle. There will be more seats to win in two years, and the governorship to hold on to. 

More imminently, there’s another big Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April that will determine the balance there, as Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate, faces off against the odious Brad Schimel.

I know I don’t have an ounce of energy to even contemplate another elector campaign right now, but I hope to gather some after the holidays.

Rest, recoup, recharge, reengage. That’s my to-do list.

Our Eastern European friends, who lived under authoritarianism for decades, offered this advice back in 2016:

“Above all, be strong, fight, endure, and remember you’re on the good side of history. Every authoritarian, totalitarian, and fascist regime in history eventually failed, thanks to the people.”

It was true in Europe. It was true in Chile and Brazil and Argentina and Paraguay. And it’s true here in the United States.

Back in college, I fell in love with the poet W. H. Auden. One of his most powerful poems was entitled “September 1, 1939” – the day the Nazis invaded Poland.

Listen to him, as he recites the last stanza of this poem:

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Today, I admit it, we are “beleaguered by the same negation and despair.”

So what is that we affirm?

We affirm love.

We affirm friendship.

We affirm kindness.

We affirm generosity.

We affirm justice.

We affirm equality.

We affirm solidarity.

We affirm freedom.

We affirm peace.

We affirm democracy.

We affirm nature.

And we will rise in defense of it all, and we will celebrate victory another day.

As Amanda Gorman tells us, 

“There is always light,

if only we’re brave enough to see it

If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

So let’s be brave.

Let’s see the light.

Let’s be the light.

Editor’s Note: Matt Rothschild is the former editor of The Progressive magazine and former executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. He’s also the host of “Wisconsin Forward,” a Civics Media podcast series that looks to explain the background on a number of issues across Wisconsin, including the seemingly split personality the state presents in electoral politics, the results of political gerrymandering, and many more.