I have never felt so hopeless in my life, and that’s saying something. This time, though, it’s not a question of feeling hopeless about my own life (though there is that), but of feeling hopeless about my nation’s life. Eight years of incremental progress* under PBO, and now, that’s going to be gone in a flash. The best case scenario is that the white nationalists and the establishment GOP constantly clash and progress grinds to a halt. Nothing moves forward, but more importantly, nothing moves backwards. The fact that this is the best I can hope for makes me exceedingly glum.
I’ve read tons of articles about what happened during the election and why, but at this point, I just don’t care. I feel removed from everything, as if it were happening outside of me. I may be able to intellectually comprehend what happened and why people voted for Trump, but I cannot grasp it in my heart. I know all the *woke* people are shaking their heads over us poor fools who actually feel shocked, surprised, and dismay, but whatever. It’s one thing to know about the deeply embedded hatred that threads through the fabric of our society; it’s quite another to have it smacked in your face.
I’m paralyzed with fear, though it’s more mental than anything else. I still go about my business, but there’s a part of my brain that’s just frozen. I felt this way during the election any time I thought about Trump becoming president, and I feel it every time I think of him as president. Abject terror.
In class on Saturday, we started talking about the practical applications of taiji. It was because my teacher had seen a video of a woman, presumably Muslim, teaching Muslim women what to do if their hijabs are grabbed from behind. I’d seen that video as well as others in the same vein, and my teacher was critiquing the good and the bad of the technique. Then, we segued into talking about self-defense from a taiji perspective, which is something I’ve always loved. It seems relevant now, even more than before. In the past, it was a theoretical love. I had no reason to believe I’d ever need it (except for the reasons that most women have. As a back-up plan), but now, it seems like a realistic possibility.
I’m tired. I don’t see how anything I do matters, including this. Nothing makes sense in the world of our new reality. There’s a bitterness in my heart that I can’t undo. No matter how much I try to soothe it, it keeps flaring up. I know I’m not wanted in this country, and I thought I’d reconciled myself to the fact, but I haven’t. Not completely. In addition, I thought things were getting better under PBO, but apparently not. Evidently, the last eight years were just too much for some people to bear, so they had to rebuke him in the strongest way they could possible.
I just got off the phone with my parents who are living in Taiwan, and they couldn’t wrap their brains around the fact that Trump was elected. My dad kept trying to find a way that made it not as bad as it might seem. He said, “Trump has to know that if he puts his policies in place, the US economy will crash and he won’t remain as president.” I said, “He doesn’t care. Nor do I think he really knows.” I went on to say that Trump is a deeply incurious man with no global view and that he only cares about himself. I did admit that I have no idea what Trump actually believes because I don’t think he does, either. He’s been all over the map ideologically, and he seems to go with whatever the last person he’s been talking to says.
I don’t blame my parents for trying to make sense of this because it’s truly fantastical. They’re rightly worry as to the effect on the world this is going to have. I can’t say anything to comfort them, and I got a little impatient at them trying to find some hope in the situation. At the same time, it’s hard for me to get mad at them because they lived through a tyrannical regime, the KMT, and were blacklisted from their own country for twenty years. My father, anyway. And, once he was allowed back into Taiwan, he worked tirelessly to get the DPP into power, which he did. Then, scandal, and the KMT was swept back into office. It devastated my father, but now, Tsai Ing-wen is the president of Taiwan. The first female. From the DPP. Taiwanese and pro-independent Taiwan. Marriage equality is about to become the law in Taiwan, the first Asian country to make it so. She openly stated during her campaign that she was pro-marriage equality. She’s single. In other words, she’s a lot like me.
My parents had friends who were jailed by the KMT for trying to revolutionize. I remember marching on the streets of Minneapolis when I was a kid for an independent Taiwan. I bring it up because it seemed like something that would never happen, but look at where Taiwan is today. That’s not to say they won’t reunite with China one day, but it seems like less a possibility than it did four years ago.
Still. It’s hard not to look at the current situation in America and not feel defeated. My parents were saying all we can do is hope for the best and do what we think is right. I don’t know what that is, and I don’t know what to do. I told my mother that I’m still writing, but my heart isn’t in it. I’m not inspired, and I feel as if I’m writing just because…well, because I have to. It’s in my blood, and I feel even worse when I don’t. The problem is, I have nothing profound to say, nothing that would shine light on this situation. I’m in the muck, just as is everyone else. No one knows what really is going to happen, but we can make educated guesses based on the team Trump has assembled.
As I said earlier, the best we can hope for is that nothing happens. As I told my parents, I don’t think Trump really wants to be president, and, I never thought I’d say this, but he’s not the real problem. He’s a gadfly who has the attention span of a–squirrel! He’s in it to make as much money as he can before he absconds or is kicked out, and he doesn’t care what harm he does to the country in the meanwhile. I’ve said the one thing I can give Trump credit for is that he believes whatever he’s saying at the moment he’s saying it. Everyone who’s trying to find a deeper meaning is missing the point. There is no deeper meaning. There is no fucking there there. He has no depth to him–he’s exactly as he appears. That’s not to say that his mind can never change because it does as often as the wind blows it seems. It’s to say that trying to figure out his psychology is pure folly. And it doesn’t matter. I wonder who’s helping him gather his team because it doesn’t seem like anything he’d really be interested in. Much like the presidency in general.
All Trump cares about is protecting his name/brand and doing whatever feels good to him. Period. When you think about what Trump will or won’t do, just look at it through that lens. “Will his benefit Trump?” If so, then he’ll do it. “Will it make him look bad?” If so, then it won’t. But, the latter is trickier because it has to make him look bad in his eyes. He doesn’t have the same ideas as to what makes someone looks bad as do most people, so you have to take that into account as well.
I started this month determined to do NaNoWriMo for the first time in a few years because I wanted to kick-start my fiction writing which has stalled for many months. I didn’t set any goals other than to write 2,000 words a day (I stopped myself there rather than ramping it up), and I was doing quite fine until the election. The shock stopped me cold, and I didn’t write for three days. I picked it up again, but it’s been a struggle. I’ve started two novels, actually, that are interdependent. I like the ideas, but the words aren’t coming to life the way they should. There are flashes, but they are few and far between. I have a hard time concentrating because my brain keeps wandering to the election and the fear of what is to come.
What do my words matter? In the best of times, I struggle to believe that anything I write has any impact on the world at all. Now, I just don’t care. No, that’s not right. I’m too weary, sad, frightened, and hopeless to exert the effort to care. I was thinking about going back to school to get my MA in Clinical Psychology, but now, I just don’t see how it matters. Nothing matters. Nothing at all.
*Grossly simplified.