“I think people are too messed up right now,” Yara Cabrera, 36, a special-education teacher in Phoenix tells the New York Times. “I don’t think it matters who’s president.”
Other Americans Lisa Lerer and David Umhoefer interviewed from Philadelphia to Phoenix, white, black and brown, Republicans, Democrats and independents, share the same anxieties that the United States is close to a fall:
The level of worry and disillusionment marks a unique moment in American public life, according to historians. In the 1930s, Americans faced the hardships of the Great Depression. Thirty years later, the United States hurtled through the tumultuous 1960s, grappling with the politics of the Cold War and the Vietnam War, shocking assassinations and the rise of revolutionary social movements like civil rights and feminism.
Now, Americans are living through the social and economic unrest of both decades simultaneously, along with a historic pandemic. And it’s all filtered through the divisive lens of social media.
Typically optimistic Americans see a bad moon rising, their country spiraling out of control. The Times reports a third showed signs of clinical anxiety or depression at the end of April. By early May, half felt “down, depressed or hopeless.” Lerer and Umhoefer quote several voters worried the country might never get back to normal. Whose idea of normal we should get back to is where the disagreement lies.
The rest of the piece is as grim as you might imagine. People who think Donald Trump “speaks like an idiot” and is “borderline crazy” plan to vote again for him anyway, as they did in 2016. People who oppose him think their votes this fall won’t make a difference.
In a way, Ms. Cabrera is right. It doesn’t matter who is president. The decisions that determine where we go from here will not be made in Washington, D.C., but by what you do next where you live. You get what you fight for, Sen. Elizabeth Warren says. Change does not come from the top down, but from the bottom up, in local decisions about who represents you on city council or in the state legislature. The quadrennial circus atmosphere of billion-dollar presidential campaigns obscures that basic truth.
It may not matter who is president but what you do does matter. What ordinary Americans did in streets across the country over the last two weeks mattered.
This week, in particular, the stress of following the news and staying engaged each day has taken a toll. It is easy sometimes to feel more like a victim of politics than a player. That is why I wrote back on Christmas Eve:
Maybe it’s the Irish in me, but I’m looking forward to the fight. It is not as much idealism as self-interest. The cure for feeling like political roadkill is not resignation, but persistent, defiant participation. Even when you get run over, you don’t feel like a victim anymore.
There comes that pivotal moment in films where heroes make a choice: to run or set their jaws and stand and fight. I thought this morning of the late Bruno Kirby who played Ed in City Slickers. In a violent lightning storm, stuck tending someone else’s cattle, the wannabe cowboys from New York City face that choice. Phil (Daniel Stern) wants to run:
Phil: Let’s just leave the heard and get the hell out of here, huh?
Ed: No. A cowboy doesn’t leave his herd.
Phil: You are a sporting goods salesman!
Ed: Not today.
No. Not today.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way by June, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.