So what if America’s a dictatorship? Would that be so bad?
Faced with an unfathomable fate – mutilation, say, or bereavement – futility may be our first response: life can’t go on, we’d sooner die. And maybe we do die, in spirit anyhow, like a Hindu widow, immolated on our pyre of grief. Or maybe, like a chipmunk after a hurricane, we peep timidly from our enclosure, feel hungry, wonder, hey, might we sniff out some leaf-fall to nibble on and, well, the impossible occurs, life resumes. We may feel guilty, disloyal to our old allegiance, perhaps we should have died, but we didn’t, we survived, and life insists on its persistence till it can’t. We’re reborn into a new state – the metaphor is inevitable – sadder and diminished, but even so, still kicking, so we must kick the best we can.
Toward America these dreadful months, such has been my panic. I’ve been saying – and believing – if the wrong party prevails in this unspeakable civil war, my life – and civilization’s – will be ashes. I wept with Auden (has anyone ever wept more hauntingly?):
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead…
Such would be my grief. But would I die – or foolishly emigrate to some non-existent Shangri-la? Or would I – for my loved ones, for the sake of dear life itself – soldier on, jut-jawed, fueled by the feeble fumes of hope?
Face it, friends: Trump could win. What then?
Having blurted the previous paragraph, I pause, trembling. HE WON’T, HE CAN’T, I’m tempted to type all caps. But what if he does? Steady now.
I will not self-destruct, I love life too much. Whatever happens – and something’s bound to – fascinates. I will not emigrate – I love America – and my cherished Americans – too much. I will continue to write, surely, and publish, if allowed (freedom of speech is an early casualty of any dictatorship). I suspect I’ll keep my head down, no eager martyr I (though that remains to be seen). You and I may huddle in clammy cellars or take strolls where we’re not bugged. I’ll encourage the Resistance if I haven’t the courage to enlist.
I will grieve, of course, and growl, but enough of these wastes of zest! Regret is thin gruel after a few bites. Weeping disgusts. I’ll get on with being, making the most of my moment, whatever that might mean. I will excoriate myself – alliteratively, polysyllabically no doubt: language is not easily crushed.
I will do my best to make the best of what we’ve got, sweeten my lemons to lemonade, pace my cell, restless to bolt. I will blaze with wrath – toward myself mostly, who could have done so much more to avert this catastrophe! – but I will bear witness, trying not to shirk, writing myself to right myself. Suicide is cowardice unless you must.
Why mar one’s moment with such grim forebodings?
By imagining we ready ourselves for what we might face. Gazing at horror stiffens our resolve not to permit it. Like old king Mithridates, we take poison to inure ourselves and frustrate our assassins.
Less than five months separate us from this generation’s D-day, a day of terrible consequence, whatever occurs. You and I, believers in self-governance, must ask ourselves, Are we doing all we can? Now or never is our timetable. We must not look away. We must not flinch.