What the hell happened.

King of the deplorables

Two years ago, when we had to purchase private health insurance for a brief period, I had my first brush with the Affordable Care Act. I learned that I would be required to purchase a plan swollen with benefits that I wouldn't use. Then I learned that I would pay thousands in monthly premiums and even higher deductibles before I would experience one dime of coverage.

Our alternative while we waited for new employer coverage was to purchase a slimmer, but non-compliant plan, and be taxed 1% of income for each month that we carried it. 

Did I resent this requirement? I did. Did I resent the ACA? I did. Did I offset the feeling of having something forced down my throat with gratitude for the sake of others who would not otherwise be covered? Eventually. Not at first, I didn't. 

When Trump came along and said that five minutes after taking office he'd dump the ACA, did I vote for him?

I did not.

My disgust with Trump's mindset, temperament, attitude toward anyone not like him, poor self-control and frat-boy maturity reminded me of my compassion for others who struggle, which was greater than my disgust at being forced to purchase something I didn't need.  

I went to bed on election night before Trump won, but not before I saw Hillary lose the election one state at a time, and realized that we were seeing for the first time, the real number of Americans who had found some voice in Trump's.

At 5:40 yesterday morning, before I read a text, a tweet, an email or column, I pulled up the Washington Post for the headline, and there it was: 

TRUMP TRIUMPH. 

I expected that at least some of this would be laid at the feet of FBI director James Comey. It was.

I expected the population that voted for Trump would be eviscerated in the media. It was.

Finally, now, one day and a better night's sleep later, we appear to be shutting up long enough to understand what we've done to create the population we didn't see coming.

We could have seen it coming back in September, when Hillary Clinton, face and voice of the liberal elite, made her "deplorables" comment, a horribly considered, "them and us" message meant to liken those drawn to any part of Trump's message to the worst of his supporters. 

If Trump did irreparable damage to his campaign with his raunchy Access Hollywood expose, Hillary did maybe as much when she characterized the dilemma of people not like her in such dismissive terms. 

Her followers included fence-walkers – the once-loyal but now conflicted Obama supporter, crushed by economic strain, unwilling to look away from a Clinton presidency quite yet, but repelled by the elitist rhetoric. She could have alienated more people with that comment only if she'd pushed them off the fence herself. 

Right out loud, I said, "Oh God, you shouldn't have said that." Because while I hated Trump's comments, I wasn't surprised by them. But that spray of bullets from Hillary, was more than upsetting, it was honest, and not in a good way. 

I felt manipulated and used by the ACA. Was I a "deplorable"? No, but did any campaign language from that side try hard enough to make the distinction?

When you screw with people's money or futures or economic viability or feeling of safety and assume they will continue to be other-focused, and not self-preserving in their ideals, you get unhappily surprised when the way to protect their interests presents itself on election day. .

What's more, I don't think Trump, in the beginning even expected to do more than make a point. I think he stumbled upon his base of frustrated, marginalized, fed-up Americans more than he cultivated it. But there they were, all those "deplorables," misunderstood and forgotten by everyone and what Trump, king of the deplorables did about this was say, "Hand me that ladle and bullhorn."

Stir the pot he did, enraging his supporters – from the infantile to the mature – with his own big fat messages of "them and us": 

"We're losing our homes, our identity, our jobs, our country. Are we going to let them get away with that?" 

Storms of outrage and  ridicule rained down on Trump and his supporters, and he only dug in further. His signature bombast became dangerous, his polarizing style threatening.  He had his gang, and his gang had gangs and they powered through, not only willing  to offend protesters, but delighting in it when they did.

There were comparisons to Hitler. There were seething characterizations of Trump supporters that only drew them closer to their leader for solace. They were all in it together. 

On Tuesday night, "they" hopped into their camo-wear and pick up trucks, and plowed through "us." 

Except that they didn't. 

A bunch of profane, crass guys with obscene t-shirts and guts and mud flaps with pole dancers on them didn't do this to us. 

We did this to us. 

We loathed a public Trump, vocally, viciously, but we ignored that many, many people were in the kind of straits that would allow them to find agreement with the softer ideas of a dialed-down Trump.

And as we've seen, in the minds of some deplorables, Hillary's transgressions were as morally difficult to reconcile as Trump's comments about women were sickening to listen to.  

I know that most of us had no question about the candidate who was best for us. I didn't reject Hillary for her flaws, nor did I give her my vote because I thought it was expected of me as an "adorable." I voted for Hillary because I wanted a kick-ass, competent, savvy woman in the white house, AND because I loathed Donald Trump for the truly awful things he's said, and has said he'd do.

I agree with those who have attributed this wildly unexpected turn to the Trumpets Anonymous, shamed away from showing themselves in the pre-election numbers, but who quietly closed the curtain, took out their anonymity, and voted against Hillary. 

If that's true, and it was certainly true when we elected cowboy George, what does it say about us, that we intimidate others or are intimidated by them into hiding our politics? 

Trump didn't win the people as much as he carried their bullhorn. It was loud enough to be heard through that closet door, where the other Trump supporters gathered, to choose the best of the bad. 

I can  soothe my soul by remembering in the future: while we differ out loud, we often agree in the privacy of our hearts. May all our hearts open to the possibility of a presidency that will not hurt us, but unite us. We have that one thing to hope for, in common, finally.

May that be what the hell happens now. 

That feeling in my stomach

Once upon a time, maybe he wasn't so orange 
but that doesn't matter now.

A psychology professor once said to us, "If you get that feeling in your stomach that you're being manipulated, you are."

Originally, I wrote a post for this space about Melania Trump's no-win interview with Anderson Cooper, in which she stood by her orange man and said everything she should have if she wanted him to be even less likeable to the masses sixty-eight stories below. 

My impression of Melania Trump was neutral going into the interview. She'd stolen some of Michele Obama's speech which lowered her grade, but her husband had just been outed as a predatory, misogynistic frat bro and maybe she was crushed, so I raised it again.

Also, how happily do they co-exist up there in the clouds, I wondered before the interview, trying, trying to give Melania the benefit of the doubt. 

Because.

How do we know Melania hasn't been facing a true crisis of "Jesus, when did this happen??" How do we know she doesn't wake up 3:00 a.m. with monkey mind like the rest of us, look over and say, "Holy crap, WTF happened to the guy I met during fashion week?" 

But really, I wrote it to get right with my own conscience. I had been prepared to loathe Melania Trump as much as I loathe Donald because she's married to him and not for any other reason. In truth, apart from the speech excerpts she stole, she lacks a history deserving of honest contempt. 

So, I reached for my generosity, a way to sympathize with a person who might be seriously, seriously, conflicted and stop judging her solely on the basis of who she married. 

Then I watched the interview. I cringed as she defended Trump's behavior with only bland words of disapproval. I said right out loud, "Don't do that," when she victim-shamed her husband's accusers, and by the time she'd offered the boys-will-be-boys explanation for his abominable remarks, my hopes that Melania Trump was a decent but (understandably!) conflicted person were leaking air like an uncapped pool toy. 

Just the same, I wrote my devil's advocate post and put it up. 

Then I took it down.  

Because I'm not sympathetic, and I don't feel she's conflicted at all. 

The post I'd written was a clearing of conscience, because I'm not accustomed to auto-disliking anyone. I'm accustomed to considering the likable side of an unlikable person and putting it on display. Normally, I'm not ruled by my assumptions, but try to chase assumptions from my thinking.

This election season has made it harder. And now, professor, I'm getting that feeling in my stomach.  

With constant exposure to the trials and missteps of others, I have started to expect the worst of everyone. Accustomed to watching people fall in the press, on the internet, and on television, I only hope it's not one of "ours." I'm judging more than I ever have, and I'm sure I'm judged just as quickly when I post my delight over Trump's biggest blunders.

It has been a tough year for good people who want to support one candidate or the other but do not wish to treat people the way they treat each other. In myself, and in others who are normally open-minded and tolerant, I see our reluctance to express political preferences openly anymore, but for all that discretion, I hear people express themselves in language that sounds angrier, closed to reason, and isolating.

If we can't look away, is it because we've become hyper-vigilant? Conditioned to expect attack? Have we transferred our fear of what lies beyond us to what lies within? 

Recently, I texted a friend after a stretch of pivotal news days for the candidates and said, "I keep refreshing the front page of the Post, but I don't know what I'm waiting for." 

That is what an opinion looks like that has been feeding on chips and dips from the news for too long and needs to go on a serious diet that consists of reason, objectivity, distance, and possibly a spa treatment of arguing the case of a supporter from the other side.  

I'll try to post my weights as they change.

We are all horrified

---From a shared Facebook post by Jim Hightower

Once, in my early high school career, I joined a group of kids who decided to skip school and hang around someone's house listening to John Lennon's White Album, which had swears in it. Two of the members of this group had terrible reputations.

But I wanted to see what it was like to be a badass. 

I squirmed with guilt the minute I knew my first class was underway and nothing felt better until 2:15 when I could go home and stop feeling stupid and disappointing. 

My mother found out of course, and asked me why I'd done it. I told her I didn't know why. Then, in veiled teen speak, I asked if she thought I was stupid and disappointing. 

I might as well have asked her if I was not actually a human, but a mountain lion. 

"No," she said, mystified by this. "Of course not. Why would you think that?" 

She didn't patch a few facts together and pretend to know what was going on with me. She just loved me and wanted to understand. And, so, she asked me to tell her what she didn't know.

Some time later, I told her how much I liked talking to her because she always "understood." Actually, she told me, she didn't always, because her life and experiences were nothing like mine. But she always listened. 

The honesty of that distinction has been on my mind lately, with respect to the "Black Lives Matter"movement and the "All Lives Matter" response that appears to frustrate everyone. If I get this even a little, both sides have a different take on the meaning. The "All Lives" people see the slogan as divisive, while it is meant by "Black Lives" to suggest greater inclusion, a desire to have one's fair share too. Not more. Just as much.

But what I hear above the din, over and over again is a response I understand better than any: don't explain what you haven't experienced.

Jim Hightower's post on misunderstanding which appeared several times in my newsfeed recently appeals to me for its elegant truth:  We can differ in history or culture and other characteristics of identity - race, gender, sexual orientation, country of origin - and still  honor each other on common ground: we are human beings who love other human beings. 

Our children, and parents, and spouses, our family and friends.  

And we don't want to lose them. 

It isn't the inability to relate to the lives and loves of others that widens the divide. It is the inability to admit that you don't know more about a thing than you do, and failing to ask for enlightenment. It is failing to locate and honor that common ground where we share more than we don't.

Especially now. 
Because, now we share Dallas.

We are all horrified.

We were all horrified by Sandy Hook, and Oklahoma City and Orlando. 

And 9/11, the first time in my memory when the country, united by massive trauma, turned to itself for comfort, then fell to either side of our common ground in the month or so after, when, just as we were hoisting flags and listening to Lee Greenwood, some politician blamed another for "letting this happen," and there we were, united and polarized in crisis.

Here we are again, united and polarized by crisis, this time with a black, blue and white conflict at its core.  

However we dissect cause and effect, we are all horrified by the taking of lives not lived, people not at fault. We have all been left under a cloud of apprehension, a feeling of dread – where will the next one be? How bad? Who will die when an officer interprets a civilian's show of fear for his life as a threat to his own? What video will go viral?

I'm losing heart. Like others, I fear growing less horrified, and I dread the next crisis that will crowd this common ground with broken-hearted people. All different in ways that matter less than those in which we are exactly the same.  

I'm going to start with that.

I'm going to ask, I'm going to listen, I'm going to read, and I'm going to keep showing up at the humanity party as a life that does not matter more than any other.

Even if I wish I could do more.

Don't let them take your heart

Don't let them take your heart

It happens quietly, and slowly 

the way the spirit fights for life

But the spirit is only so resilient

The heart must act.

Don't let them take your heart

The fear that fills us

The sadness that slows us

The anger that devours us

The dread that comes with the first glance at morning headlines

Don't learn to expect the worst

Don't become less surprised

Don't let them take your heart

Shore up your faith in the humanity which connects us

Keep the capacity to grieve, to cry for a stranger

Don't let your spirit lose its fight

Don't let them take your heart.

When it seems unsafe to be where you belong

When it seems everyone might be a killer in the making or a victim in waiting

Remember that fear only feels like information

And that far more evil has been stopped than perpetrated 

Don't let them take your heart.