Presidential Election Season

I’m probably not alone in what I feel as the Presidential Election Season drags on: complete exhaustion. Frankly, I don’t know if I have within me the firepower to write one essay, let alone a series of essays on the November 5th election. I’ve been writing letters through Vote Forward to encourage people to vote; I’ve sent post cards on the same theme; I’ve donated to campaigns; I’ve bought merchandise declaring my support for my candidate. At this point, I would truly like to go to bed—attended by my dog—and sleep until it’s all over. But then this morning, I was reading James by novelist and professor of English Percival Everett, and I came to several lines that I could not easily dismiss.

James is the story of the slave Jim from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It’s narrated by Jim, who speaks both in vernacular and in what we might call “accepted” English. In a discussion regarding two charlatans who have just bilked a small-town crowd out of their money, Huck says to Jim: “…but people liked it, Jim. Did you see their faces? They had to know them was lies, but they wanted to believe. What do you make of that?” Jim’s response struck me like a slap: “Folks be funny lak dat. Dey takes the lies dey want and throws away the truths dat scare ‘em.”

They take the lies they want and throw away the truths that scare them. This, of course, is no news when you consider the oft-spoken claim that people believe what they want to believe. What I hadn’t considered was the second half of what Jim says in the novel: that people throw away the truths that scare them.

If that is indeed what’s going on in our country at the moment, perhaps it’s a good idea to pause and consider what lies people wish to embrace, no matter the consequences, and what truths they fear.

I’m puzzled by the ongoing support for Donald Trump in 2024. the ongoing and passionate adherence to his candidacy no matter what is revealed about him or by him. My late father was a Republican until Richard Nixon destroyed his faith in the GOP through the Watergate scandal. My brother had voted Republican a number of times until he moved to Canada after the Supreme Court gave the 2000 election to George W. Bush. So I am no stranger to people who support or have supported the GOP. But what’s happened in the political world of the US since 2015 is something very different from what I’ve seen during my lifetime.

I’ve thought about Donald Trump’s supporters a great deal, I’ve seen them, and I’ve heard them speak. Initially, I accepted the fact that some people voted and continue to vote for GOP candidates like Donald Trump because they always have voted for GOP candidates and cannot face party lines. But that was then. This is now. And it seems to me that within the remaining group of zealots, there are two camps who exist not in opposition to each other but rather with intentions that are either hidden from or ignored by the other camp. One of the groups is both visual and vocal. They demonstrate their zeal with yard signs and bumper stickers, with flags (both Confederate and US); sometimes they have themselves tattooed; they frequently wear clothing and headgear that mark them unmistakably. Any number of them go to rallies and cheer their candidate on, laughing where they are supposed to laugh, chanting where they are supposed to chant, booing where they are supposed to boo. The other group, however, exists in silence, making no outward claim of loyalty toward their candidate even as they funnel money into his campaign and buy media outlets so as to guide their watchers and readers in the direction they wish them to go. This group comprises mute billionaires, foreign oligarchs, and individuals who see in their candidate someone for whom gaining the Presidency was and is a transactional procedure defined by money given and favors owed.

What I find interesting about both of these groups is their unacknowledged commonality: it makes no difference to them what Donald Trump says or what Donald Trump does. The why of this comes, I believe, from exactly what Jim says to Huck: “…dey throws away the truths dat scare ‘em.”

For the zealot it seems to me that one of the truths “dey throws away” is a product of their fear of loss. In Donald Trump they appear to see someone who is going to keep far away from them the hungry and baying hounds of equal opportunity for all, the potential ascendancy of women, racial equality, and freedom of expression. They see each of these as various incubi determined to rob them of a power that is and has always been more phantasm than actuality. To hold onto this power they must cling to a primary belief: that white males are simply born superior to all other humans. Donald Trump stands for that power. Nothing has taken him down. Nothing has stood in his way. For years he has been able to say anything and do anything with no consequences. Thus over time, he has become a Godlike figure pursued by enemies who would see him destroyed.

For the silent supporters, the truths “dey throws away” are the truths that reveal them as greedy individuals who are indifferent to the poverty, the suffering, or the sickness of others. That collectively they could lift out of poverty every child in America, educate each of them straight through to profitable careers, create mass transit for every city, build adequate housing and shelter for everyone, provide medical and psychological help to those who live on the streets, and still be fabulously wealthy does not occur to them. What does occur to them is having more: more of what they already have in abundance.

So here we are. And our lives hang in the balance.

You might declare that “things were better under Trump,” and I will ask how they were better. Were our lives better when young white men marched in the streets shouting “Jews will not defeat us”? Was life better when a declaration of “thoughts and prayers” was what was offered when children and teachers were shot in their classrooms? Was life better when police demonstrated their lack adequate training when it came to dealing with suspects, with people having psychotic breakdowns, with frightened women in their homes? Was life better when families were separated and children were put into cages and holding cells? What was “better under Trump”? And what improvements is Trump telling us he is going to make in our lives and in the lives of our children and grandchildren if he is elected again?

I suppose we can refuse to answer these questions. Indeed, we can refuse even to consider them. We can move forward, determinedly avoiding the truths in front of us and blindly cling to the lies being told to us, but I believe that, if we do, we and our descendants will be henceforth taking our meals at a banquet of consequences.

Elizabeth George
Seattle, Washington
28 August 2024