Election 2020: A Referendum on the Country’s Soul (Hulk Hogan Said So)
To listen to the Obama’s this election is beyond dire. To hear the WWE-style Good vs. Evil rhetoric of this upcoming election paints it as the most important vote any one of us will ever cast. The pall of doom is painted in the blood of lambs over the doors of any American still reeling after nearly four years at Hillary’s ignoble defeat.
The vestiges of genuine, quantifiable white nationalism are on the ropes. To combat this, Americans need posturing not policies. We need to be told how truly poisonous are the impulses of those who embrace an orthodoxy of hate (but only if they hate us. Our hate, we say, is justified).
As religion wanes as a daily way of life, we seek a new religion. Some grasp at secular theologians who tie a Gordian knot of anti-racist mumbo-jumbo. Some gravitate toward an anti-classist quasi-anarchy. There is certainly the strange branch of individualistic humanism favored by Libertarians and the slightly authoritarian beliefs of twenty-two year old white people wearing black claiming to be anti-fascist.
The common thread to these neo-theologies is that they all seem to anti something rather than pro something. To gain traction and followers, there has to be an enemy. A villain.
And so we have, on a national level, the villainy of Donald Trump with which to contend and defeat.
I’m not a religious sort but the times seem to be calling for some sort of faith beyond science. We want answers and want them definitively. Science is not equipped for unequivocal answers. Religion is based entirely on responding to our uncertainty with black and white responses that require belief. During the DNC, President Obama provided that response.
Certainly, his speech was laden with a sense of stake and dread. Unusually, a former president openly criticized and dismissed the current office-holder but that wasn’t the religion he espoused. He asked for, he demanded, fealty to the concept of Democracy.
Now that’s a religion I can get behind. As he outlined it, the American Experiment has been ongoing. Gradual, systemic improvement followed by a step back followed by two steps forward. Despite what the Twitter Bots and the Race Grifters tell us, the country is far better than it was one hundred years, fifty years, thirty years, five years ago. More people have basic civil rights than ever before. Less people of all races are subjected to brutal and often homicidal bigotry.
Democracy is slow but effective. It requires a belief that the system can always be made better in increments and over time.
We have become Matthew Broderick in the 1999 dark comedy Election. His character becomes a monster for no other reason than he doesn’t like Reese Witherspoon’s character. That’s it. He’s not for anything but her humiliation and defeat. His unreasoning hatred engulfs him, consumes him, and ultimately destroys him.
I can’t blame citizens born after, say, 1995, for their democratic atheism. The country they’ve grown up in started with 9/11, a pre-emptive war justified with false information, an internet that had already worn its newness by the time they encountered it and was already losing its soul. They have watched wages stagnate and billionaires succeed. They have borne witness to environmental genocide and a bizarre, rage-filled partisanship that has defined their view of politics, the media, and life.
I remember things before it became so dismal. Sure, we had the fear of nuclear armageddon, the Cold War, the AIDS crisis, NASA imploding, a brilliant president brought down because he fucked around on his wife, and parachute pants. We also had respect for journalism (because journalists were respect-worthy), the amazing technology that was the internet before it became an addictive pursuit to enable narcissism and our most extreme and insane getting the microphone, and government that worked for the most part and for the most people.
The American Democracy is not televised wrestling. At least, it shouldn’t be. Vote because you believe that democracy is better than the alternatives rather than because you dislike Donald Trump or his cronies. Vote because it is your right and your responsibility. Vote because so many across the globe are not afforded the privilege.
If you protested during the pandemic in your mask and in the face of tear gas, rubber bullets, and looting, go out and fucking vote. Standing in line to rid ourselves of the reality television show it has become should be worth it.
The social contract is simple. Cast your vote. Protect the fidelity of the election process. If your candidate wins, be gracious. If your candidate loses, be accepting. Unity of purpose and policy are the sacraments of democracy.
"Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it." John Lewis
