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With just days to go until the US election, the Listener’s Washington DC columnist Jonathan Kronstadt turns to positive visualisation and mindfulness apps as he anxiously awaits the election outcome.
For my entire voting life, from 1976 to last Thursday, choosing a president has been a partisan endeavour. I’ve never voted for a Republican and feel safe in asserting that all the ones that managed to move into the White House without my vote left the nation worse off on their way out.
In the past, which side was going to win was pretty much all you had to worry about. It was often more than enough, given the damage done by the likes of Nixon, Reagan and the Bush twins. But this time, things are different.
Not only has the worry about who will win been super-sized by who could win, a new and equally toe-quivering question has been added: what’s going to happen?
There are three instantly memorable dates for Americans: Fourth of July, 9/11, and the club’s newest member, January 6. 9/11 shattered our collective feeling of invincibility from outsiders; January 6 did similar damage to our sense of safety when looking at each other.
So, this time – really for the first time – we don’t know what’s going to happen. No one knows. There are no polls to predict this outcome, no wizard pundit with an airtight case for any point on the reaction spectrum from silence to civil war.
As you might imagine, this thick layer of looming chaos-induced angst hasn’t done a lot for our national blood pressure. I’m keenly aware that as a straight white male living comfortably in the suburbs, a Trump victory would likely have little impact on my day-to-day life.
But in a way, much of the damage is already done as there’s no denying that about half the people whose phone country code is the same as mine are okay with putting this petty and mean-spirited narcissist in charge. That is an inescapably sad fact.
But for the millions who are even a little bit vulnerable or marginalised for a host of reasons – most, though not all, of whom fall under the umbrella of not being a straight white male – a second Trump presidency is cause for genuine concern.
If you needed more proof of the unhinged toxicity of the Trump approach to, well, being human – and you shouldn’t – his racist-even-for-him rally at Madison Square Garden should suffice.
Because this massively insecure man needed to show the city that branded him a 34-time felon that he’s its once and future king, he brought a parade of hate to the nation’s most famous arena. Trump’s immigration attack dog, Stephen Miller, who would never have drawn breath had his great-grandmother not left Russia for the US during the early 20th century pogroms, offered the uniquely racist redundancy: “America is for Americans and Americans only”.
Trump thoughts on the rally? “I don’t think anyone has ever seen anything like what happened the other night at Madison Square Garden. The love in that room; it was breathtaking.”
If irony would like to make a comeback, the millions of mainland Puerto Ricans – whose home “Trump’s comedian” on the night called a “floating island of garbage” – would be a great choice as a voting bloc that seals his orange-jumpsuited fate. It was quite a display of unapologetic, downright boastful bigotry.
But, because it seems certain that either God, 1) does not exist, or 2) is really pissed off at people for some reason, both of the following things are true: 1) the closer the election result, the more dangerous its aftermath, and, 2) it’s going to be the closest election ever.
So, we wait. And clench. And maybe try that mindfulness app with all the breathing and the Australian woman with the soothing voice. Or try positive visualisation. I have one where Kamala wins by a nose and Trump takes the stage with everyone expecting him to call for Insurrection 2.0, and he opens his mouth wide and says, “Ah, the hell with it. I’m bored and wanna go home.” And off he goes to follow his newest bliss: making McDonald’s French fries.
My brain, and pretty much everyone else’s, has been fully scrambled by this endless, chaotic campaign and the uncertainty of what’s to come.
Maybe he changes his name to Donald McDonald, I don’t know. My brain, and pretty much everyone else’s, has been fully scrambled by this endless, chaotic campaign and the uncertainty of what’s to come.
Another important change has turbocharged our national anxiety: we don’t know who or what to trust anymore, so we don’t trust anyone or anything. The last time the US faced such comprehensive societal turbulence was the 1960s and back then the most trusted man in America was, and this should shock you, CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite. (The most recent “most trusted person” survey was 2013 and the winner was Tom Hanks, who somehow we trust because he mostly plays good-guy roles in movies.)
We used to trust in things we don’t so much any more, such as science, journalism, government, and the common decency and good intentions of our fellow humans. For far too many of us, thanks to the carpet-bomb demonising of the “other” we get from the media, candidates and interest groups, our political opponents have become our enemies and a supposed existential threat to our way of life.
All that being said, I hope, and actually expect, that the forces of reason will prevail on November 5, and that Trump and his multitudes will be too exhausted to try and overturn yet another election. He already holds the record for the most attempts at overturning a US presidential election, so flipping another would be just showing off. On the other hand, he really likes showing off.
