Election 2024: Welcome to the Resistance

No matter who wins

In roughly 24 hours after I post this, Americans will have finished voting. Sometime between then and Inaguration Day we will learn who our next President will be. I can state with confidence that I will be opposed.

Not to everything, but to enough. Both of the candidates have considerable shortcomings (to be generous) and advocate policies I think would be harmful. Both pose threats, in their own ways, to speech, commerce, and civility. A flawed selection process has produced flawed candidates. I don’t doubt for a second that the next Administration will offer plenty to stand against.

I do not say this because I have affinity for a losing candidate, nor do I believe either are existential threats. They are embodiments of where we are as a People, and that is the scariest part of this—that we got the candidates we deserve.

Part of what I oppose is the direction I see taken by my fellow citizens. I see them losing faith in the American Experiment, and I see them losing trust in each other. And without that faith and trust, the beautiful words in our founding documents will be increasingly meaningless.

Politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from trust.

The pandemic caused lasting harm to civic trust. Whether is was the hypocrisy of public health policies, the selective application of freedoms of speech and assembly, or the enforced separations for in-person institutions that fostered community (or all of the above), we emerge into this post-election with deeper suspicion than ever of our fellow citizens. Trust is the hidden glue that holds our society together. I was deployed to Iraq; take my word, we do not want to live in a low-trust society.

We often view each other as separate populations. Red or Blue are talked about like a binary, rather than the full spectrum that we actually represent. Opponents are either evil or stupid, not folks who brought somewhat different values than our own to the questions of the day and came to different conclusions. We have an abundance of material comfort and electronic connection, and yet we feel more impoverished and alone than ever. We have people talking about a “national divorce” and “burn it all down.”

And I am opposed.

This is a country with serious flaws, many of which are worsening. It is also the greatest country in the history of the world. America is worth my belief and effort. Her people are for the most part generous and kind, and we want a better future for ourselves, our fellows, and our descendants.

I am in opposition to those who would say this experiment has failed, and that, because their candidate lost, the fight is over. That the cause is lost.

I named this Substack after Don Quixote, the famous knight errant created by Miquel Cervantes. In the most famous of his adventures, he mistakes windmills for giants, and tries to take them on in a fight (or “tilt”). It is generally suggested that “tilting at windmills” is a metaphor for a wasted fight, or one against an imaginary opponent. I see it differently. I like to remember Don Quixote as represented in the musical Man of La Mancha, and the song The Impossible Dream.

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
And to run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
And to love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

Aspirational? Sure. Trying to oppose the current forces does at times seem like an impossible dream. A lost cause. But I don’t believe in lost causes. As T. S. Elliot put it:

“(T)here is no such thing as a Lost Cause because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause. We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that anything will triumph.”

All well and good. But if you are like me, you will at times wonder what you can do that will matter. As one person with a tiny voice, what can I do? What can we do?

I have specific ideas, policies I like, but for now I will give my general guides I will try to follow and model:

Trust your neighbors. Hell, _meet_ your neighbors. They may not vote the same way you do, but you probably agree on more than you disagree.

Get out of your comfort zone. None of the best memories in your life will have happened in your comfort zone. Volunteer. Do something that lets you shake hands with people. Think of somewhere (besides work) where people smile when you arrive. As a bonus, helping others can make you a bit more grateful for what you have.

Don’t believe everything you see online. There are algorithms feeding you info to keep you mad, because mad is engaged, and engaged in online. Don’t let those bastards win.

Don’t give up. Earlier, I referred to the American Experiment because that is what we still are—an almost 250-year experiment in self-governance. Every generation has its own unique challenges, and must find its own unique answer to Ben Franklin’s assessment that we are “A republic, if you can keep it.”

I wish I had better ideas, but in the end, this will have to come organically from America. It won’t be one bright idea, or a man (or woman) on a white horse. We, the Resistance, will have to stand up and say that America may fall someday, but not today, not on our watch. Or, as Aragorn put it: this day, we fight.

Cheers, y’all.

(Image from DALL-E)