There’s a scene everyone on the internet knows from the meme above — even the six or eight remaining people who have never seen or read The Princess Bride: Vizzini, the Sicilian ‘mastermind’ and villain, when confronted with the perseverance and superhuman feats of the man pursuing him, keeps calling those successes, and the implied possibility of his own defeat, “Inconceivable!” His accomplice (who’s not such a bad guy, actually) finally says “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
We all make fun of Vizzini. He’s a villain played for laughs by one of the funniest straight men around. But we know what he means when he says that. We’ve all felt that. And now more than ever.
The word had been going through my head for a few days before the election. It seems so exactly right. I wanted to post somewhere a long list of the inconceivables that are happening in the election, to say it’s inconceivable to me that anyone who cares about the country and is capable of reading could ever consider voting for Trump; it’s inconceivable to me that any woman, or anyone with a daughter, could consider voting for Trump; it’s inconceivable to me that anyone who remembers their own immigrant ancestors could consider voting for Trump; it’s inconceivable that anyone who loves America and considers him- or herself a patriot could consider voting for Trump; it’s inconceivable how anyone who calls him- or herself a Christian could consider voting for Trump; it’s inconceivable that any veteran or soldier or relative of one could consider voting for Trump; it’s inconceivable that anyone who cares for their children’s future could consider voting for Trump. And so on down the line.
But the word, which came so handily and persistently to mind in this context, is what stopped me. Because that’s Vizzini’s word. And I was using it the way he was. I was saying all these things that were actually happening were “inconceivable.” And that is absurd. It’s the basis of the joke in the movie. What I meant by this is that I would never have believed these things possible in this country in this day and age. And the fact that my response was to say “Inconceivable!” in the face of the groundswell for Trump — even if he had not won — says a lot about what optimism and idealism can do to make you fail to face horrible facts, even when you’re from the side of the political spectrum, and of a set of mind, that actually cares about facts.
I still don’t want to believe this is possible. To me on some level — with the part of my mind that thinks the world is getting better, that people are slowly getting less blinkered and violent and ignorant, and that America should still be the home of infinite optimism — a Trump presidency will always remain inconceivable. That part of my mind is still reeling in shock at what has come to pass, and it will probably hunker down under a rock for the next four years. And it will probably take my optimism about humanity and America with it.
But here we are, with the worst candidate in American history elected president because so many people wouldn’t come out to vote against him. A lot of them never really believed he would win. I think a lot of his supporters never did either. It was inconceivable. Every stage of it was inconceivable even after it had happened. And for all we raised the alarm about what a Trump presidency would mean for the country and the world, I think most of us also all knew it wouldn’t happen, and so we let it. And now every day the reality of some aspect of the fact, the earthshaking change that just took place, hits us all in the head. We’ll be lucky if it turns out better for America than it did for Vizzini.