Dear America,
I visited my doctor's office a couple of days ago and I was quite surprised to hear her express her feelings about the incoming administration. She started our conversation by admitting that she had awakened that day in a terrible mood...what my wife calls "green and grumpy." She added that a friend had spoken to her earlier in the day and she too had awakened in an emotionally uncomfortable state, as it turned out had a psychologist my doctor had had occasions to talk to that morning as well. The psychologist had told my doctor that this particular week is conceded in her discipline to be the worst for depression of the year...the third week of January. The holidays have just passed, as has the celebratory mood they inspire, we feel a renewed sense of obligation with taxes and compliance with resolutions looming, and I would add in the case of 2017, Donald Trump is about to be inaugurated and his term is about to commence. (I've still got 45 minutes before that disastrous prospect becomes a reality, so I am writing to you now while I still can as I anticipate a several-days-long funk starting at about noon.) To my surprise, it was my doctor who brought up the prospect of a Trump presidency, adding that she didn't anticipate relief until either Trump was impeached or his term ended, whichever came first. What was remarkable to me about that comment was that I have said since the day after the election that Trump's term would be at most four years long, and probably less as he is so likely to be impeached. And as it turns out, I hear that a lot. Impeachment is a hope that the people I know are clinging to rather than an advent that they fear or dread. We are all looking forward to scandal, and we all think that our wishes are very likely to come true.
I will admit that the society amidst which I live is somewhat closed. Except for my in-laws, we are all progressives...lifelong progressives...and we are all of a certain age, if you know what I mean. So, given the univocality of our politics, it is to be expected that we would agree on Trump's and the nation's prospects at this moment, but as it turns out, about 60% of the American people feel the same way. Of necessity, that includes liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats as well as independents, young and old, whites and others...black, brown, red and yellow...as well. Trump won only 46% of the popular vote, but even fewer people now feel his transition behavior bodes well for the nation. Thus, even those responsible for electing him, some of whom I will endeavor not to roundly reproach on Thanksgiving at the extended-family dinner table every year of his tenure, don't see his ascent to office as a positive portent, and that in itself is a reasonable inspiration for despondency. Still, the only alternative to crawling into a hole and dragging the dirt in over my head is to hope for the best...to fervently wish for the best. Because the alternative isn't a moment in which I can say to my relatives, "I told you so," it is to dig a 1950's style bomb shelter in my backyard and stock it with enough canned goods to last twenty years. It is to sell everything I own and buy diamonds with the money because they may be the only thing that won't lose value during a Trump presidency. It is to cower and practice apology to our fellow human beings around the world for the catastrophe we have wreaked upon the not just ourselves, but them as well.
So, in this moment as I hear the clergy representative's benedictions in the hope that they aren't eulogies, I chose to be optimistic that Donald Trump can deliver on the desirable promises he has made--more and better jobs, a greater national weal, in short health, wealth and happiness for us all--and that he will fail with regard to the ominous ones like repeal of the Affordable Care Act and its replacement with something that will set the prospect of universal healthcare back decades, bellicose tensions with China, collegial rapprochement with a tyrannical and devious Russian demagogue by whom an entire Russian nation seems rapt. There is the potential for cataclysm ahead of us, but there is also a viable hope, faint as it may be, that Donald Trump will do some or all of the right things despite his bent and his rhetoric.
So today, I won't indulge in deprecation and vituperation. Today, I wish us all well, not matter what the odds. I'll do what I can to make the advent of a new Pax Americana a reality, and I hope the rest America does too. I would love to feel inclined to for Trump for the first time in four years.
Your friend,
Mike
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