A woman wrote: "I'm going to start doing yoga and train for a marathon."
A man wrote: "I'm turning off all news until, well, maybe forever."
Readers have been writing me, telling me they had tuned in. Now, after the election, they are dropping out. Or at least considering how to stay sane while contemplating another four years of Trump-centric America.
They feel dismay that so many of their fellow citizens chose Trump. Some fear the changes Trump said he will make. Some feel exhausted by the high drama of this long election season. Trump is a lot of emotional work. The question is, what now?
Tam Moore, a journalist for seven decades, sent an example of that genre of incoming mail. Tam turns 90 this month and stays busy with volunteer church work, with helping the Southern Oregon Historical Society, with adult education classes, and more. Every morning he finds and corrects errors in my blog posts before they get sent out in email form. He has stayed put and dug in.
Guest Post by Tam Moore
All the polls were closed except in Alaska, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands on election night, and at 8:45 p.m. Barbara – my wife -- announced she’d had enough of watching election returns and opinions of the talking heads. She headed for the bedroom, turned and asked, “Should we be thinking about selling the house and moving to Canada?”
It was a discussion I put off until breakfast. Watching the wave of Trumpism sweep the country, knowing that a majority of American voters – not just the Electoral College—favor an erratic populist candidate over one with the aptitude to govern, is a bit hard to take. We didn’t resolve anything at breakfast. Except that we aren’t bailing out and moving to Canada.
I’ve been around for a lot of presidential elections in my nearly 90 years on this planet. And I’ve read about most of this nation’s presidential elections. If we thought the attack ads and words used to demonize the opposition were brutal in 2024, one can look back to 1796 when John Adams defeated Thomas Jefferson, 71 to 68, in the Electoral College. A total of 13 men were in the race – including George Washington, who didn’t want to be there but earned two electoral votes anyway.
And my children may remember the dinner table conversation in June 1968. That was the day when, early in the morning Sirhan Sirhan shot and killed Bobby Kennedy in a Los Angeles hotel. As a reporter, I had covered Kennedy’s speech the evening before at Medford Airport. And the country was still in shock over the April 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I was bummed out that night.
We talked then about moving to New Zealand, which is a world away from Medford and seemed a peaceful place. Later I even got as far as checking out job opportunities for broadcast journalists in New Zealand. But we didn’t move.
The country healed itself from that awful year of violence — 1968 — featuring assassinations, riots, a president dropping his candidacy, a riotous Chicago convention, a war escalating in Vietnam, and then Richard Nixon’s win over Hubert Humphrey. The voting results map was as red as the one we see today, with five five southern states going for segregationist George Wallace.
There’s a resiliency in the people of America. We bounce back. Kamala Harris showed that with class Wednesday afternoon in her 12-minute concession speech full of thank-yous to the people who put together a hope-filled 107-day presidential campaign.
Amid the chaos that’s bound to come with another Trump presidency, let’s look for the common ground, for kind words, and know that we the people have a history of healing our wounds. It’s not time to move to Canada. This is a great place to be.
The garbage man hauled away our Harris for President sign this morning.
16 comments:
“Should we be thinking about selling the house and moving to Canada?”
I hear Canada is going to build a wall and make the U.S. pay for it.
"The garbage man", indeed?
The Democratic elites didn’t hear the working class. Or, when they deigned to briefly listen, they immediately denounced them as “racist, sexist, homophobic, a basket of deplorables.“
The working class noticed, and the result is now here for all to see.
There’s an old saying that in order to get a donkey’s attention, you first have to slam it in the head with a 2 x 4. I think that just happened, and I hope the donkey is finally paying attention.
The only qualification or experience Trump needed for Republicans to make him president the first time was being the biggest blowhard in the racist “birther” movement. Considering our history, it should probably come as no surprise that Americans prefer a racist, misogynistic, trash-talking outlaw to an experienced public servant who honors the oath of office and rule of law – after all, she’s a woman of color.
I have to laugh at those who blame the economy. Trump’s gross mismanagement of the pandemic left it a shambles and the current administration restored it. Now Trump again gets to do for the U.S. what he did for Trump Steaks. There’s a cliché that voters aren’t stupid. Oh, really?
Trash talking the voters is not a path to success in democracy. “You are too stupid to understand your own best interest“ is not a winning message.
I would have thought this would be obvious to everyone…
Charlamagne tha God on Trump’s Victory: ‘Democrats Might Just Be Really Out of Touch with What Everyday Americans Are Feeling’
I can’t say how I’ll feel in a few months, but my mind has just turned off politics. I put so much emotional energy into the election that, despite the terrible outcome, it’s almost a relief to turn to something else. I’m taking a literature class that is really absorbing, another class where we discuss articles on a huge array of topics as well as short stories, and another one on Dickens. These provided me some temporary relief before Tuesday, and now they’re helping me pivot to new things. Sports, travel, exercise , hanging out with grand nieces and nephews, whatever. Am I bitter? Yes. Am I willing to obsess over every appointment and action the Orange Toddler makes? No. For now, I’m checking out.
"Too brainwashed" is accurate.
Idiots think they were better off four years ago when they couldn't buy toilet paper.
This nation is still damaged by policies of previois republicans administrators and their rich White donors.
Democrats need to farm out their dirty work to other nations, like republicans have done for decades.
And Biden's feckless AG needed to arrest Don Old's staff who were negotiating with foreign countries, as Nixon and Raygun did..
"You are too stupid to understand your own best interest" isn't a message anyone was sending, but it should be obvious to everyone now.
Trump is deplorable. Those who would vote such an obvious madman into our nation’s highest office are even worse. Those who make lame excuses for them aren’t much better.
“There’s a cliché that voters aren’t stupid. Oh, really?”
So what message does that quote send? A celebration of their brilliant insight?
“Orange man bad” turns out to be a losing message. But I guess sometimes even the 2 x 4 doesn’t work. 🤷♂️
The elites will just have to elect another people…
Excellent approach. If we let Trump's victory bring us down, the hate-mongers win.
That message was never sent by any candidate, but it's certainly obvious now.
It must take a supreme act of will to not notice the colossal ignorance of those who swallow Trump's Kool-Aid: the "stolen election," "massive voter fraud," Jan. 6 being "a day of love," etc. There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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