Good morning.
What if the naysayers are right?
What if all those who tell pollsters they love Trump or abominate everybody are trying to say something worth saying?
You know that crummy feeling when a cold’s coming on, you’re achy, grumpy and can’t say why? The whole world feels wrong somehow. Your gloom has some basis, but what? Feelings, though they may fail analysis, are never false. Mad is mad, sad sad, we do feel this way dammit!
Statistics can’t diagnose our national distress because it’s not about statistics. Economically, most of us are doing OK. We’re spared – for now – war, hunger, despotism, plague, the familiar human blights. Nothing’s the matter – only, something is. Touch our foreheads – we’re feverish. Why?
Exclude from this calculus all those who stand to gain from a second Trump administration, the plutocrats who can never be rich enough and the politicians they bob like puppets. Avidity is an age-old human ailment, easy to detect, hard to cure.
I mean the Americans who don’t stand to gain, who would be materially damaged by shredding the social safety net and losing essential protections. Eliminate social security, the IRS, climate protection – cripple the armed forces, constipate our economy – and all will suffer, but the poor first. These folks seem to be voting against their self-interest. Why fulminate against a “welfare state” that keeps them afloat?
That our sickness is immeasurable doesn’t make it less real. We’re sick, alright. No present Republican proposal makes the nation materially better for most. Yet many of us, perhaps even a plurality, are restless to return an unmistakable monster to power. Why?
Our sickness is not material, but spiritual. We are sick at heart. We yearn for a satisfaction that dangles tauntingly out of reach. Life’s not a gleaming chance but a gloomy chore. Our birth rate’s sinking. We’re depressed.
When I say we, I don’t mean I. I’ve never been happier. If I were twenty-something, I’d want a bunch of kids – and more dogs. My heart bursts with hallelujah. My only sorrow’s the shortness of my time.
Many neighbors are not so blithe. What can we do to make their lives – and the human adventure – more enticing?
What’s always given me joy is team sports. I rejoice in being part of a group that strives toward an invigorating end. My inclusion makes me matter, however modest my contribution. All hands on deck!
I loved playing tennis doubles. Community-building was such a mutual enterprise; nation-building too. Music-making is a team sport, requiring performer, composer, listener. Art strives to sweeten the lives of all. I think of our little coterie as a congregation clawing our way through the confusion of being. Clawing together alleviates the loneliness and lightens the load of each.
What America needs is purpose. “The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope,” said Dr. Johnson. “Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality,” said another great doctor, Jonas Salk. We need, as much as a Commander-in-Chief, a Dreamer-in-Chief.
This is where Biden falls short, and Trump, with his fans, triumphs. Trump energizes; Biden doesn’t. Biden does right but leaves us feeling eh. Trump’s a crook who stirs his dupes into ecstasies: evil – what evil? – I’m feeling grand!
Electronics will strain to transform Biden into a superhero. Pray the forces of freedom and sense prevail over the demonic fury of grievance. Then let’s go searching for our next Moses – a Washington, Lincoln, TR, FDR, Augustus, Napoleon – to hurtle us into a Brave New Day.