Jonathan Kronstadt is a freelance writer working in Washington DC.
OPINION: When they were little, both my children were perpetual flight risks. They weren’t running away from anything in particular, they just liked to go where they wanted and they often didn’t bother filing a flight plan before taking off. But they came by it honestly, as I have a long history of devising exit strategies even before I cross any threshold.
This meant that when Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, my first thoughts were of escape. Canada was too cold, New Zealand wouldn’t take me, and my stubborn monolingualism eliminated most of the rest of the world. So, against my better judgment, I stayed, and we all got a four-year master class in injustice, corruption, division and a slew of other Trump-amplified societal ills. Now he’s back, and this time, those who’ve decided to challenge him offer governing philosophies every bit as abhorrent as the orange menace himself.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is younger and arguably smarter than Trump, but has largely co-opted Trump’s approach of throwing the red meat of cultural grievance to the MAGA base over a host of marginally existent threats. Nikki Haley, a former governor and ambassador to the UN, recently said, in an apparent transphobic rage, “The idea that we have biological boys playing in girls’ sports, it is the women’s issue of our time.”
Seriously? Of our time? Tim Scott, an African-American senator from South Carolina, where people of colour own 11 cents for every dollar that white people own, called the blatantly factual assertion by a TV commentator that Black professionals and leaders are exceptions to the Black experience, not the rule, “a dangerous, offensive, disgusting message to send to our young people today”. Huh?
And former vice-president Mike Pence famously refuses to eat alone with a woman who is not his wife, so a Pence presidency would bring back that lovely Victorian morality we’ve missed so much.
Like Trump, these are unserious people running for a deadly serious office, so recently, I resurrected my exit plan.
Then I stumbled upon something my 19-year-old son wrote immediately after the 2016 election. It’s irritatingly resonant today, so I offer it here: “If you believe a Donald Trump presidency poses an existential threat to American democracy and world order, as I do, Tuesday night was angering, confounding, even depressing. His election undoubtedly represents a major step backwards in the march towards a more just world.
“However, we mustn’t hang our heads and declare that all is lost. Trump’s election should instead mark the beginning of a movement to reject hate and divisiveness.
“Here are some things I ask of the people who feel the same way about Trump as I do.
“Don’t move to Canada. Don’t joke about moving to Canada. If you have the financial means to simply pick up and move to another country, the worst effects of a Trump presidency won’t fall on you, anyway. Stay here and fight. We’re going to need all the help we can get.
“Don’t despair any longer than is absolutely necessary. We all have a right to grieve, to feel lost and hopeless, but we also have an obligation to move on, and to renew our commitment to fight for our values.
“Engage with people who don’t think the same way you do. We cannot dismiss Trump supporters as just a radical group of racist, sexist, uneducated people – they have real, justified concerns, and they run our country now. In order to effectively deal with a Trump presidency, we must understand where his supporters are coming from.
“Anger is not a plan. Protesting is the beginning of a plan. Working hard on local issues, organising around specific causes, and making sure Democrats win big in two years are, in my mind, the only viable paths forward – that’s my plan. I hope it will be yours, too.”
It can be annoying when you raise kids to have certain values and then they throw them back in your face when your face and the rest of you wants to flee. But it’s a pretty compelling argument, especially for 19.
