An Ostrich on the Morning After
On election day, I avoided the news. My daughter came over for dinner and we binged on Northern Exposure DVDs.
I looked at election returns for two minutes before going to bed. Only the vote from eastern states had been tallied. I turned off my devices until dawn.
The morning after the election, I read the news. I was not surprised. Disappointed. Maybe even deflated. But not surprised.
Oddly, I started thinking about Lord of the Flies—wherein civility gives way to chaos when boys are marooned on an island with no supervision.
And a bit later, a line from one of my favorite movies, The Freshman, came into my head, “There’s a certain freedom in being totally screwed, because nothing you do can make it worse.”
I don’t know if I feel totally screwed—I know it can get worse. But there is a sort of comfort in resignation. I feel like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me, but at least nobody is beating on me at the moment.
The question is, will the fighter that belted me now help me up with a handshake and a nod to the fair fight? Or will he tell me I’d better always be looking over my shoulder?
In my experience, after a contentious election it is customary for the victor to begin with an inclusive acceptance speech. To note that battle lines had been drawn during the campaign, but now declare these divisions to be history. To vow to serve in office with respect for all the electorate, no matter their political background. Whether or not the elected official says these things in earnest can’t really be ascertained, but it’s the polite thing to do. And the first step in uniting a divided populace.
Trump did give a nod to the population at large in his rambling acceptance speech, “I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected… And every citizen, I will fight for you, for your family and your future… (I added the bold—to make sure you didn’t miss the brief attempt to unite our divided country.) I don’t know if he meant it—but it was the polite thing to do.
In any case, the people have spoken. And this time there is no question what the majority wants—no raging argument over the popular vote versus the electoral college or suspicion of vast voter fraud. If I am to be a functional part of this democracy, I need to accept that the majority wants something different than what I want. Even if I don’t understand it.
Maybe it’s my patriotic duty to try to understand it. Not necessarily to agree with it, but to at least give the benefit of the doubt to the majority of my fellow Americans, rather than dismiss them as misguided, brainwashed, or worse.
But at the moment, I sit here—windless—wondering if there will be gloating—or bilateral attempts to unify the country. If my general commentary will be considered—or censored. If my heartfelt political viewpoint and love of country matter one whit.
I had an impulse to stick my head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich, and disconnect from politics entirely. This urge, in turn, spurred me to research ostriches. I learned they don’t really stick their heads in the sand. If they’re poking around below the earth’s surface, they are checking on their offspring—the eggs they’ve buried for safekeeping in communal nests on the ground.
They’re paying attention.
Good idea.