The election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States of America in 2016 was bizarre enough. Unimaginable almost up to the moment his election was confirmed. His defeat by Joseph Robinette Biden in 2020 seemed to indicate that the nightmare was over. But that illusion was quickly dispelled long before Biden was inaugurated, and the nightmare went on and on day after day after day for the next four years, culminating now in the return to power of the MAGAMonster and his Minions.
How does one explain it? I think it was a perfect storm of misogyny (a female candidate), racism (a Black candidate), and backlash against a Democratic Party that turned its back on working class Americans under Bill Clinton, who transformed the party into Republican Lite in 1994, a shift that neither Barack Obama nor Joe Biden did much to reverse.
I rather suspect that most of the people who voted to put Trumpelstiltskin back into power may end up realizing that Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Marian Edelman, and all those other billionaire backers of #47 are not interested in looking out for their interests, and I only hope—I have to admit—that it happens quickly enough for me to enjoy their shock and surprise. No doubt they are surely enjoying my distress and discomfort at the results of this election, imagining that they’ve really stuck it to the “liberal coastal elites.”
Meanwhile, the magnitude of the disaster that is about to descend upon us has periodically snuck up on me over the past days since the election, and it taps me on the shoulder, and sends me spiraling into despairing hopelessness. I find myself having to fight the feeling off, stuffing it back down like a jack-in-the-box, and focus on the next task before me, whether that be feeding the cat, making the bed, washing the dishes, going to the grocery store, or doing my feeble daily exercises for old men (because I am now an old man).
And as I think about it, there actually are a few positives to come out of this election result. I won’t have to watch political advertisements on television or on my computer claiming that Kamala Harris is gleefully inviting illegal rapists and murderers into the country and offering them free sex-change operations while Trumpty Dumpty is going to deport all those nasty immigrants.
I won’t—at least for the time being—be getting almost daily appeals in the mail to send money to the Harris Victory Fund or Bob Casey for PA Senate or the Chuck Shumer Senate Majority Campaign. Or dozens of text messages from candidates as far away as Texas and Montana asking for $$$$$ on my ancient flip-phone. (How the heck did all those politicians even get my number? I don’t give it out except to my wife and daughter. My friends don’t even have it.)
I also won’t have to live with the frustration of Harris winning the popular vote only to lose in the Electoral College. Or the Electoral College being tied, thus throwing the election into the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Or the election ending up being decided by our Retrumplican Supreme Court. And there won’t be an assault on Capitol Hill to try to overturn this election.
But then I think about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in charge of public health, Steve Bannon in charge of domestic programs, Marco Rubio in charge of foreign policy, Kristi Noem in charge of Homeland Security, Tucker Carlson as press secretary, Michael Flynn as national security advisor, and Trumpesaurus in charge of anything, let alone everything. And all that despairing hopelessness comes jumping up out of the box, and I find myself wrestling with it and trying to get it back in that goddamned box where I’m going to have to try to keep it for probably what’s left of the rest of my life.
My only consolation, if one can call it that, is realizing that just about everyone I know and care about is feeling as distraught as I am. I never was a believer in the adage that misery loves company, but I’m beginning to re-think that one. I am going to need my friends, and they may even need me.
Since the morning of November 6th, I’ve received sympathetic, empathetic, thoughtful and loving e-mails and phone calls from a whole bunch of friends who are no happier about this disaster than I am. I’ve had several long walks with friends who have sought me out, knowing me well enough to be concerned about where my head might be. I’ll be having lunch tomorrow with a mother whose son I had taught some years ago, and taking another walk with a friend the day after that.
These are all people who care as deeply as I do, and will be struggling day to day as I will be, and will need my support as much as I need theirs. We have no way of knowing how things will unfold over the next weeks and months and years. But most of us have no choice except to get on with life, making the best of things in whatever ways we can.
As I was writing this essay, another old friend—the poet Doug Rawlings—just adminished me to heed “the old cliche — live in the moment. We can both do more good for the world if we are still here and not in our graves. Take good care, and keep writing!!!!”
So I guess that’s what I’ll do.
William “Bill” Daniel Ehrhart is an American poet, writer, scholar, and Vietnam veteran. He received the Purple Heart Medal and the Navy Combat Action Ribbon for his service in Vietnam. He holds a PhD from the University of Wales at Swansea. Ehrhart has been called “the dean of Vietnam war poetry” and is the author of more than 30 books, including Vietnam Perkasie: A Combat Marine Memoir, Passing Time: Memoir of a Vietnam Veteran Against the War, Busted: A Vietnam Veteran in Nixon’s America, and Thank You for Your Service: Collected Poems. His most recent book is What We Can and Can’t Afford: Essays on Vietnam, Patriotism, and American Life(McFarland, 2023).
