Election Blues

When I first restarted my blog in February, I was looking forward to commenting on the 2020 presidential campaign.  I've long enjoyed national politics, and the Democratic primary didn't disappoint.  But since then, I've lost interest in details that usually consume me--emerging issues, polling data, party platforms, and candidate gaffes.

I think it's in part because this campaign follows the same script every week: some new Trumpian outrage followed by rebuttals from Democrats and pundits, who make the same arguments over and over again.  Permeating beneath this is a layer of fear: fear that Trump will rig the election, fear that he won't leave peacefully, and fear that minority rule will triumph again.

All reasonable fears.

What to do?  My neighbors and friends continue to ask how they can help.  People who never wrote letters or made phone calls now offer to do so.  Others who didn't consider themselves "political" put up yard signs and volunteer to work at the polls.  These actions matter.  And yet I can't help but feel like my country's unraveling.  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death and the nomination of her successor highlight both a growing national divide and the hypocrisy in our government.

In the midst of all of this, I took comfort in the spontaneous protest that erupted this week, directed at Donald Trump as he viewed RBG's casket at the Supreme Court.  Gathered on the grounds nearby stood ordinary citizens who jeered and booed as he came into view.  Eventually their scorn coalesced into the chant "Vote him out," which Washington Post writer Monica Hesse called "astonishing, discombobulating, and more patriotic than anything you'll witness at a Trump rally."

Here was Trump, pretending to honor Justice Ginsburg, forced to face an outcry against him.  This almost never happens.  Wrapped in the cocoon of the White House, he ventures only to arenas where adulation is the norm.  On Thursday, though, for about one minute, he stood and heard the voice of protest.

This gave me hope.  Fellow citizens honoring our distinguished justice and, at the same time, calling out our unworthy president.  I may be feeling blue, but I also feel buoyed by my neighbors and the protestors in DC who showed themselves to be irrepressible.