How mad ought I appear? How sad?

Election ’24 afflicts me like a brain disease. My alarm ratchets to panic, my rage to wrath. My health is affected. I’m jittery, grouchy. I drink more than I intend, to blur my dismay. I devour campaign news with sick avidity. “I can’t stand this,” I groan absurdly. My rants bore me and will you if I don’t take care. Whatever happens, friends console me, the world will not end November Fifth. I disagree. The wrong result may forever alter the world we know. History is pocked with calamitous occasions: November 22, 1963, April 12, 1861, Nine-eleven 2001, November 9, 1938, August 24, 410 CE, April 3, 33 CE, April 4, 1183 BCE, to name a few.

Does my dread exaggerate? Maybe. But neither you nor I know for sure. Fear is definitive: one cannot disprove what has yet to occur. “Anything can happen,” we say – and sometimes anything does. I trust Trump to attempt what he’s promised if elected, then Katy bar the door.

Whether and how to fulminate are tricky calculations. Lunatics need not concern themselves with moderation: but who invites Ezekiel over for dinner? If I drench you with my despair, you’ll decamp, and that will be that. To feign unconcern would abuse our friendship. To vent the extent of my apprehension would elicit consolation, which I recoil from. Truth is like hot sauce: sprinkles enhance, where a spurt spoils.

Never have I felt more worried for our kind. JFK’s assassination, when I was thirteen, and Nine-eleven were terrifying, but order was restored. Only tyrannicide will arrest a Trump-Vance tyranny. Megalomaniacs and megabucks will suppress freedom as thoroughly as the Taliban in Afghanistan. Our choice will be put up or shut up, their way or the highway. Those who believe America safe from such predators favor fantasy over history. All states fail. If America’s democracy disintegrates, the rest are likely to follow. After two hundred and fifty years, democracy remains an experiment, no sure bet.

That’s my prevision. That others are less frantic doesn’t soothe me; the majority are always taken flat-footed by history. To insist on my horror, though, would exhaust my hearers. So I must pretend more ease than I feel, like a nurse with a moribund: “Don’t worry – you’ll get through this.”

How to cope with my consternation? Sleep is my first recourse. One does feel better in the morning. Then (no surprise) I write. Language is my flashlight under the bed. How bad will it be? I ask myself. Then: If it is that bad, what will I do? Kill myself? Not a chance. Turn saboteur? Unlikely, at my age. Words are my only talent, so I’ll continue to bear witness, as truthfully and amiably as I can. Reread Boethius maybe.

And cling to those I love. If I’m hurting, they will be too. If we lose the America we revere, we’ve been lucky to have lived here these years. Avoid, if possible, the solipsism of grief. Yes, our loss will be great, but forward is our only direction. Envision a better future and steer there.

At this writing, Trump is slightly favored to win reelection. Color me aghast, astonished, dumbfounded, humbled, frustrated, bewildered, disgusted. I may never understand – or forgive – but I must prepare. No use caterwauling or pining for days gone by. Now is our only opportunity. Will I be mad? Sad? You bet. But I will button it.

Above all, aim for joy.  Wherever we are, we can be a force for good. Count blessings, not regrets. Rancor sours the air for all.