Hi, Matt Rothschild here with another episode of the Wisconsin Forward Podcast on Civic
Media.
This one's going to be a little different because today I want to speak with you about
sustaining hope in hard political times.
I'll give you my perspective and I'm going to offer up the wisdom of some poets and
writers and scholars who've inspired me before in rough times.
I hope they'll inspire you too.
But first of all, in these dark days after Donald Trump defeated Kamla 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, to the undocumented
and the families of the undocumented, working on our midst and who keep our economy going,
to the trans folks who are so demonized by Donald Trump and by Eric Havdy.
We need to wrap them all in our arms today.
And my heart goes out to any woman who's been sexually abused and now has to look at
a convicted sex offender in the White House.
I shouldn't have to face that every day.
And I feel for older progressive women who long to see a woman president in their lifetime,
only to wake up the day after the election with the glass stealing 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's even in more 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, only more nausea.
Spend time with friends as my wife and I did the night after the election and in subsequent
days.
And listen to the marvelous essayist Terry Tempest Williams, who wrote, 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.
She used to write for me at the progressive, and yes, we must build that community of
care.
She's just a wonderful person and a tremendous writer.
And we need to also try to get ourselves out into nature, at least for a few minutes
a day if you possibly can.
Here's the great Kentucky poet, Wendell Berry, reciting in his own voice a beautiful
bear tone, his wise poem, The Peace of Wild Things, which he wrote in the midst of 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 that 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 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 re-election bid, and we got spanked both times.
I was on TV the night the 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 good
night America.
As Kamala Harris said in her concession speech, I get it.
It's tough right now.
We must regroup, re-gather, rethink, 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.
This famous quote of his has been on our fridge, often on for 20 years now.
I'll start it, and then I'll let Howard himself finish it.
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.
It's based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also
of compassion, sacrifice, courage, and 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
the spinning top of a world in a different direction.
Here's Howard Zinn wrapping it up.
And we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future.
If we live now as we think human beings should live, in the finance of all that's bad
around us, that in itself is 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 Valkov Havill, the Czech dissident and poet who later became
president.
Havill called this living within the truth, but not giving into 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 with 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 Anterony, 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 doesn't mean not fearing, or not grieving.
It does mean resisting right away.
And we can resist in a whole variety of ways.
We can write letters to the editor, we can call into right-wing radio shows.
We can join a good group like the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, or the ACLU of
Wisconsin, or Common Cause of Wisconsin, or the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, or Planned
Parenthood of Wisconsin, or Conservation Voters of Wisconsin, or Vosis de la Frontera,
or Black Leaders organizing for communities, or Fair Wisconsin, or the myriad of 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 if there isn't one already.
But you can't do it alone.
You're good 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 AOC said after the election, never ever, ever think that any choice or any act of
yours is too small.
It isn't.
And regimes and autocracies are taken down by millions 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.
And we must be prepared to march in the streets to protest any of the fascist moves that
Trump makes, and 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'll 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.
For 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 Shummel.
I know I don't have an ounce of energy to even contemplate another electoral campaign
right now, but I hope to gather some energy after the holidays.
Rest, recoup, recharge, reengage, that's my to-do list.
Are 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'll be true right 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 Very Day, The Nazis Invaded Poland.
Here's his haunting last stanza.
Defenseless under the night are world and stupor lies, yet dotted everywhere, ironic points
of light flash out wherever the just exchanged their messages.
May I compose 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 it that we affirm?
We affirm love, we affirm friendship, we affirm kindness, we affirm generosity, we affirm
justice, we affirm equality, we affirm freedom, we affirm peace, we affirm democracy, we affirm
solidarity, we affirm resistance, 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 in.
So let's be brave, let's see the light, let's be the light.
I'm Matt Rothschild, and thanks for listening to this post-election episode of the Wisconsin
Forward podcast brought to you by Civic Media.
I hope in some small way it's been helpful to you.
Please catch my next episode which will be on racism here in Wisconsin, featuring Earl
Indrom and Angela Lang.
You won't want to miss it.
