by Don Hall

RIGHT BRAIN

You know y(our) hatred of Donald Trump is more aesthetic than political, right?

I mean, you (we) have to understand that it isn’t his policies that cause such histrionic, mind-numbing disgust and irrational outrage. It’s that he is a sexual harasser who brags about it. He makes fun of the disabled. He is a white collar criminal who gets away with it in broad daylight. He’s his own hype man. He is, finally (or at least final in this short list) a brazen apologist for white nationalism and a bigot.

You (we) hate him not his policies.

This kind of emotional volcano is bound to create the kind of high expectations for how good it will be to beat him (even if Biden is too centrist and reasonable for your tastes). 

High expectations are a mistake.

Let’s say Biden and Harris win decisively. Christ, that’d be grand but what happens next? The kids with no jobs, no skills, no reason to do anything but hook up at protest rallies or terrorize hapless diners will continue to do so. They are demanding stuff and kids who demand things are little tyrants and monsters.

The things they are demanding are righteous. In the dwindling corner, there are those protesting for reform of the nation’s policing. An end to the (less and less) common practice of police shooting black men and women. With no leaders to intervene into the structure of society, this quickly marginalized margin offer no substantive or feasible solutions but have a moral strength that is admirable.

The larger gentrification of this corner do not protest so much as destroy and terrorize. They march and verbally attack. Sometimes they physically attack. They are carrying the banners that black lives matter but the point of their mob is against a system they’ve decided they are against. They scream at black cops about black lives with no reflective irony. They block the police and then cry when the paramedics refuse to assist them when one is injured.

If (when) Trump is defeated, what will these kids do? Go back to college? Go back to minimum wage jobs? The expectation is change. Now. These kids marched into restaurants and upended tables, screaming for fealty from diners, with no consequence. You think they’re going back to a time when they didn’t do that?

Do you sincerely believe the Proud Boys and the Blue Lives Matter folks are just going to graciously pack it in and call it a day? Angry assholes with guns showing up to these peaceful protests (that routinely involve an awful lot of violence, donchaknow) ready to fight back and win against the horde. Cops with military-grade urban assault equipment hellbent on defending property as well as themselves. 

Accepting defeat has not become one of our defining American character traits.

Now suppose Trump wins? It’s not like we haven’t all been there in that moment. I recall November of 2016 at a public radio Election Night event I organized, as the room filled with excited liberals slowly leaked the energy like a punctured balloon until Joe Janes and I were among the last sitting at a table with our heads in our hands.

Yeah, we all declared that if Trump won we’d move to Canada but in the pandemic world Canada doesn’t want us and we were only saying that. We didn’t move, did we?

The best way to avoid the crushing disappointment of high expectations is to expect the worst outcome and be mentally and emotionally prepared for it.

LEFT BRAIN

I am, at heart, a true blue, rose colored glasses optimist.

That, however, does not mean I can’t see the pessimistic viewpoint. Often I need to express that cynicism first as I just did. Optimists are not, as the cynic would indicate, unrealistic. I’d argue we are even more realistic in that we see what a fucking horror humanity can be and still get up, dust off the shit, and carry on with hope.

With that in mind, allow me to amend my rant.

High expectations are a mistake if left unmanaged.

Let’s assume for a second that Trump pulls it out again. This is a dire possibility in part because no president in history has been so pilloried nor so worthy of it.

Will things be somehow more horrible? Probably. With a mandate of a second term, everything we feared in 2016 is likely to become fact. The pandemic is hitting flu season and the economy is in tatters and he’s certainly not going to improve things.

I don’t think it’ll be Nazi Germany because hyperbole is for marketers and morons but it ain’t getting better. It will definitely cement the Critical Race Theorists and the anarchists and violence will ring through the land in ways we have never encountered on our soil.

A Trump second term will “embolden” those mouthbreathing dipshits who cleave to racial identity as the single most important aspect of each of us. Supremacists and Segregationists and the two will go to war on our streets. Climate change will continue unabated and scorch the entire state of California. Food scarcity will hit the lower third of the country.

Yeah, not much optimism in that scenario.

So what happens if Biden wins?

It won’t get better for a very long time. Pandemic will still rage on, the economy will still be in the shitter for a while. We aren’t likely to defund the police (but some significant reform is far more possible). Our standing with the rest of the globe will begin to improve, our inclusion in combating environmental disaster will be reignited. 

I trust Biden. I trust that he will listen to the grievances of the ridiculous extremes on either side and make legit compromises that benefit all of Americans. Or at least he’ll try.

Optimism is a choice and an attitude. Just as violence is a choice, identity is a choice, hope is a choice. I choose to set myself up for crushing disappointment because, at the very bedrock of me, I am a frustrated idealist.

So I will vote. And I will hope. And I will manage my expectations to match reality as best I can.