Here we are again

What I wrote on the eve of the 2020 election

With less than three weeks to go before we face another moment of reckoning as a country, my mind and heart pace anxiously. I feel slightly nauseous. I am afraid.

I remember this feeling all too well. We’ve been here before. Or rather, we’ve lived here for too long.

I also remember the unbridled joy when the networks finally called the 2020 election for Biden. My husband insisted we load the kids in the car and drive downtown DC. And I’m glad we did, because it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. We joined a parade of cars down Constitution Avenue that had American flags flying out open windows. The Star Spangled Banner blared. Pedestrians danced in packed streets. People were hugging and crying and laughing and smiling.

parading down Constitution Ave

We had done it. We The People had saved democracy, we had passed the test of citizenship, as every generation is called to do . It was over. We could rest.

And then I remember the disgust and disbelief watching mobs storm the Capitol. When the rioters mounted the Senate dais, I choked down vomit. It was like watching a priceless piece of art set on fire.

This moment broke me.

I was horrified. But also relieved once it was all over. Surely that was the death knell of this insanity. Surely the fever would break. As I watched Biden take the oath of office days later, I sobbed with gratitude.

You know the rest of the story. It’s not over yet. The tsunami is still racing towards our shores. The cancer is back. Emperor Palpatine isn’t dead after all (spoiler alert if you haven’t seen the newest Star Wars trilogy, but honestly, you could have seen it coming because Hollywood isn’t that original).

Falling to his death….Just kidding.

But just like in Star Wars, it’s never over. The work of pushing America forward is never done. The dark side of human nature is never defeated.Whatever happens, we still have much to do.

I’m fresh out of naive optimism that we can change the minds of those fully captured. Our work is to outnumber them, to win the younger generations and to create a pathway out for those who are quietly uncomfortable, to point out the dangerous flaws and failures of our beliefs and our systems that brought us to this place. To convince them major change and reexamination is no longer optional. That’s true politically, and it’s true for the church.

On the eve of the 2020 election, I sent this essay to a few friends. It perfectly captures my thoughts four years later.

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The year my grandmother was born, women got the right to vote, a historic expansion of democracy that brought America another step closer to fulfilling its promise. Now, on the eve of an election that could take us further backwards than any of us could conceive at this point in our history, my grandmother lies in a hospice bed, dying. Maybe not tomorrow or even next week, but it's clear her time is short. ¹ 

She and my grandfather, who died in 2005 as Katrina made landfall, were anchors in the stormy sea of my childhood and especially my young adulthood, focal points as my head spun. I could see them in my mind even when years passed without seeing them in the flesh, sitting on their back patio in West Texas, watching the sun dip below the lake, my Pepa spitting tobacco into a red Solo cup, both of them sipping Natural Light. My super-charged evangelical parents agonized over their lost souls and eternal destination. I worried, too, but they never seemed lost to me. More importantly, I never felt lost around them. 

Growing up, I was always proud to be an American. Bursting proud. Some of my first memories were at Ft. Bliss, where my father retired from the army to become a missionary to Kenya. I remember the 4th of July parades, with the soldiers marching in formation while a military band played the sounds of patriotism. I remember my dad looking handsome and dignified coming home from work in his fatigues and boots, his name emblazoned on his chest. I remember the bugle calls in the morning and taps at night.

When we moved to Kenya, I loved America even more. She was the land of Snickers and Big Macs, new toys and shoes and all the things of desire we couldn't get in Africa. She was the promised land for the countless Kenyans who asked my parents to please please help them get there. She was the beacon in a dark world, the Cold War liberator, the prod behind the back of Kenya's dictator, eventually pressing him to hold elections.  She was the merciful sender of food aid during the 1984 famine, each bag stamped with "From the American People." From OUR people. We were the lucky ones, but we were also the good guys, trying to share our good fortune. 

My mother calls to update me on my grandmother. She's in and out, up and down, she says. She could pass at anytime, or not. It's not clear, but the actuarial tables are not in her favor regardless. I rarely let my guard down with my parents, but I cry, hard, uncontrollably. I cry because my Mema, this bedrock of my life, this precious source of identity and unconditional love, is leaving me.  But it's more that that. It's much more than that. 

Regardless of what happens tomorrow, Election Day, so much of my country, what I thought it was, has already died. I used to think we were abundantly safe from the violent political diseases I witnessed growing up, as sure as American marines evacuating us if the situation in Kenya ever went south, the way they did in Liberia, Zaire, Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan. Tribalism, corruption, political retribution, lawlessness. As a schoolgirl forced to wave dutifully when President Moi's motorcade passed, I could see that Kenya was his plaything. Kenyans had no rights, only gifts from Nyayo, as he was called (a cool nickname is pretty much obligatory for an African dictator). 

I never imagined America would fall victim to such a leader. I never thought America would squander its heritage. I could never fathom that America would treat its institutions, built over centuries and coveted by developing democracies everywhere, so carelessly. I could never conceive of America turning its back on the world. I never considered we might turn back on the sacred journey towards a more perfect union. I never thought the darkest parts of our history weren't history after all. 

But mostly I never dreamed, in my worst nightmares, that the American people would choose this, willingly, deliberately, and that after all they have seen the last four years, they might be so perilously close to choosing it again. For all the disillusion I feel, that is the worst part. The sad fact is the American people as a collective, who are the very foundation of our democracy, are more foolish, more hateful, more ignorant, more apathetic, more bigoted, less committed, less devoted, and less trustworthy than I ever thought possible. 

And that includes many of MY people. They are, in fact, some of the worst offenders. Trump would not be president without the support of white evangelicals.  Although I don't consider myself one anymore (well, I'm very white, as my dancing and horrible skin makes obvious), I am a Christian of sorts, I come from that world, and I have seen its lovely side.

But all that is beautiful in that faith tradition has been finally eclipsed for me. Trump has made its toxicity unavoidably plain, he has shown that above all, it is a faith built on fear, not love. The fear was always there; I felt it most acutely as a child, terrified I hadn't recited the Sinner's Prayer correctly and would spend eternity in hell. But now the fear has crowded out everything else, as Christianity's cultural power wanes. Trump has seized on that fear like the predator he is and has exploited and humiliated evangelical faith as he has so many women. 

I've always known that Mema can't live forever. And honestly, if she had the energy for politics anymore, she'd probably be a Trumper, too. I've certainly heard her say racist things in my life, although I've also seen her heart open up wide to actual people of color. I've overlooked her flaws because it's doubtful anyone of her age, background, and education could not be racist. She is America, her life spanning almost half its history and bearing the imprint of its many sins. 

Mema will soon die, but I don't honestly believe America will. Not tomorrow anyway, not even if Trump wins, although that will certainly make our death as a democratic nation a much stronger possibility. But as much as I've been disappointed by a large percentage of the American people these last four years, many others have inspired me. There are so many people who believe in this country and want to fight for it, no matter how they've been let down. I think in particular of Black Americans, who have fought and died for this country even when it spit upon their very humanity. Their descendants are still fighting, pressing, pushing, demanding we keep moving forward, onward, don't stop, don't give up. 

My hatred (yes, I confess, hatred) of Trump has put me in coalitions with new people and ideas that have opened my eyes and caused me to reconsider long held notions. The long decaying remnants of the categories I was given as a child have been finally exploded and the remainder of my world has turned upside down. I've come to see loving hearts in people I was told to view with suspicion and small, bitter ones in those who claim spiritual authority. I've seen patriotism in unconventional places and conventional patriots smeared as traitors. I've seen Jesus in heathens and Satan in Christians.

I'm more sad and angry than I was before Trump. But I'm also wiser, less naive, more determined. I don't think I ever took this country for granted—my childhood ensured that—but I did take its success for granted. I don't anymore. I see its flaws clearly, and I clearly see I have a responsibility to repair them. I feel about America the way a person in a long marriage feels about their spouse. The infatuation is gone, but the devotion is stubborn.  

I don't want to have to endure another four years of Trump. The thought exhausts me. I have doubted that I can. But if I have to, I will fight like hell through another 4 years. I may have to make some big life changes.

But I am not yielding. We are not yielding. Because something better is afoot, I can feel it. He is the last gasp of that which is giving way.  

1. She died on November 11, 2020 at the age of 100.