I'm not an especially metaphysical sort of person. But once in a while, I have a gut reaction to something or someone that seems to defy reason, and I've learned to pay attention to those moments.
During the summer of 2000, I had just such a reaction to George W. Bush. I was familiar - unfortunately - with many of the people surrounding him, the now infamous neo cons - Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, the PNAC gang. I knew enough about Israeli politics to know what they wanted and what the election of Bush would mean. "Iran, Iraq and Syria", their position paper stated, and "Iraq is the low hanging fruit". I learned more about George W Bush and discovered that while generally the very prototype of sub-par, he had one truly outstanding skill: He danced with them that brung him. He made money for the people who put him in positions of power because he did exactly what he was supposed to do, no matter who it hurt. Sometimes he lost money, but even then, the select few who backed him profited richly.
I grew fearful of Bush in a way that I never had before a politician. I got more involved in the Al Gore campaign than I had intended, not being an enormous fan of the Clinton / Gore domestic policies. I also had, for lack of a better word, a premonition that something would go terribly wrong.
I remember when CBS called Florida for Gore. I literally fell to my knees and said, "Thank God", and to my recollection that is the first time I've ever done that. I also remember when they put it back in the "too close to call" column - and a long personal and national nightmare began. From that moment until the Supreme Court decision that illegally handed the presidency to George Bush, I followed every twist and turn of the Bush/Gore fight like a person possessed. I kept waiting for a savior, I guess. When would the cavalry arrive? When would the Democrats unite and demand justice in Florida? How could my fellow citizens not want votes fairly counted? This whole democracy thing - was it all a complete farce?
The Supreme Court decisions stunned me - I knew Scalia was a horrible person but the depths to which he sunk still shocked me. I was still - then - shockable. When they handed down the Bush V Gore decision, I turned off the t.v. and didn't turn it on again for three months.
But I organized. I fought back. I joined anti-war groups, started progressive umbrella groups, wrote articles, and when the Kerry campaign needed a female to "balance the delegate slate" I volunteered and got elected. I gave speeches, I raised money, I held candidate forums. I posted on Daily Kos, and found myself coming to this blog as a kind of "blankie" to hold, a place of reassurance to drive away my fears of a Kerry loss. I knew the campaign was not a great one and I was troubled. The spectre of four more years of Bush was more than I could bear.
Once Kerry was the nominee, the cheerleading began. Bush was toast. We were told that over and over on Daily Kos and anyone who admitted to fear was castigated. On the one hand, I got it - morale and all. But on the other hand - we'd seen an election literally stolen and our constitution shredded. To express undiluted confidence in the system and the American people was simply more than I could muster.
And then came election day. I don't remember how I got through the early part of the day - praying, I think. Driving people to vote. And checking in on Daily Kos. I declined invites to attend various parties, deciding I needed to be alone this night. And the early reports - the exit polls - produced the second time I'd ever fallen to my knees, thanking God.
Then - like a poorly directed horror movie - the bad news started and it just never ended. I fell to my knees for a third time - but this time in despair. And that night, with Ohio almost certainly lost but Kerry deciding to wait the night to concede - I swore I'd never be so vulnerable again. This was it. I'd stick to my socialist principles and be a hard core realist. No more unalloyed hope for me.
The ensuing four years, like the previous four, brought nothing but hardship and disaster to my family, economically. I sit here tonight in pain from untreated dental problems. My cat needs a vet I cannot afford. I do not know how my family will pay a number of vital bills. My husband and I are working multiple jobs, and still cannot make ends meet. None of that surprises me. But here's the amazing thing: This centrist, this politician I was quite familiar with and not all that impressed with, Barack Obama - a man I'd marched in the Wheaton Fourth of July Parade with and castigated for being out of touch at a community college town hall - gave me back some hope. It's not just his rhetoric. It's the millions he's inspired. They are so much more than he is - these millions of working people who see, once more time (the last?), a chance that America might care about people like them, too, and be a place where they can find some life, liberty, and happiness.
But the scars of the past eight years are like a burn - get a fresh one too close to a heat source and the pain is intense. What if...what if....what if they steal it again? What if the Bradley effect is real? What if there is a "game changer" (how I hate that phrase. This is not a freaking game to me)? What if, on November 5th, we wake up to find a recyled maverick-cum-neo-con and an uncurious hateful theocrat in charge of our executive branch?
So all you out there who are impatient with the handwringers and concerned ones, the whiners and the downers, think of us like this: When you've had a serious illness once, you are going to overreact to troubling symptoms. You are going to panic sometimes. None of us can predict what is going to happen. We may win. We may lose. And it's that possibility - loss - that holds more than just the fear of a really bad presidency. For people like me, it means I will have to make some serious decisions about whether the United States can have effective change via the political system anymore. And if I conclude the negative - what does that mean in terms of my obligations? When in the course of human events - what WILL we do?
Yes, I'm fighting and donating when I can (and going without necessities to do so) and canvassing and everything else we are supposed to do. I don't overreact to daily polls. But that fear - the kind that makes me fall to my knees - is always just under the surface. And in the back of my mind, I'm weighing things. When do you decide you truly have to make that hard choice, the decision that you simply can't take anymore; that it is "better to die on your feet than live on your knees"?
So that's what this election means to me. And that's why sometimes my comments are a tad chickenlittle-flavored. I don't want to have to make those decisions. We simply have to win this one in November.
Cornelius Ryan dedicated his "Bridge Too Far" with these words: "For all of them". And that's who I think of when I think of this election....all of them....
"Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An' for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
Starry-eyed an' laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an' we watched with one last look
Spellbound an' swallowed 'til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse
An' for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing."