I’m Dumbfounded: Are We Too Afraid and Too Ready to Accept a Simple or Convenient Lie Instead of Searching for The More Complex Truth?

I’m dumbfounded. Perplexed. Confused. And frightened. Worried. I feel a hole in my stomach. My hands feel like they’re vibrating, but it’s on the inside only. My mouth, cheeks, and eyes feel heavy, like they’re filled with concrete.

 

Dumbfounded is a good word, because I feel dumb. Have I been so wrong about humanity? Are our fellow Americans just so misogynistic they couldn’t allow a woman to be president? Or too racist? But somewhere upwards of 40% of Latinos voted for DT and helped swing the election. I’m missing something here. Or are we too vengeful? Too afraid? Too ready to accept a simple or convenient lie instead of searching for the more complex or inconvenient truth? Are our memories so short we don’t remember the chaos, fear, and malignant incompetence of DT’s response to COVID? Or his assaults on healthcare? The favoritism shown the rich?

 

Or have too many of us been so consumed by fake news we can’t see what seems so obvious to many of us? Or so deluded by disinformation we’ve voted in the King of fake news? The wanna-be Dictator of lies, hate, and fear?

 

I’m so confused.

 

Or maybe the election results are off? Or just feel impossible? Certainly, if the results prove accurate, the polling was off.

 

I was recently at a large dinner party seated with two obviously intelligent women I didn’t know. They were talking about their distrust in government. Their level of distrust and bitter anger startled me. One, who was a Kamala Harris supporter, even said, “Do we really know if we should have fought in World War II? Did we defeat Fascism?” I jumped in with two not-very mindful feet and said, “Yes. We did. Remember six million Jews had been killed, exterminated.” We shut off the ovens. We released starving millions from concentration camps. She said she agreed with me. The other woman became silent. But what about the distrust? Was I witnessing the result of disinformation aimed at undermining our trust in democracy?

 

Maybe she had a point neither of us recognized right then. Maybe the fascism continued underground. Maybe we saw its ugly face last night?

 

I don’t know.

 

But maybe the not-knowing can be a good thing….

 

**To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

Reducing Anxiety so We Can Live Through the Next Few Days. Final Thoughts: In an Autocracy, We as Citizens, Consumers, Patients, and Workers Lose Our Rights

First, a personal concern:

How do we reduce the anxiety most of us are feeling about the election to something we can live with? DT has done all he can to make this difficult. He has worked to make the election as chaotic and threatening as possible. He’s done all he could to try to fix or hold up election results and frighten election workers. He’s promised if he wins to rule like a dictator, use the military against those who oppose him, and violence if he loses. He has falsely claimed for years that the 2020 election was rigged, and now he claims this one’s been rigged, so whether he loses, or wins, we won’t know who our next president will be for hours, days or weeks after Tuesday. But the evidence shows that the only candidate in the 2024 race who’s tried to illegally interfere in the election process is DT himself.

 

I’m tired of him. I want him to just lose, again, but this time, disappear from the political stage. I’m trying different strategies to keep my eyes open while keeping my heart rate as comfortable as I can. One strategy is to do whatever and as much as I can to get out the vote, or as Michelle Obama said, to do something.

 

I’m also considering my own health, mental and physical. One way I’m doing that is to study how, in the worst of times, maybe we can get stronger. In the midst of my fright, maybe there’s buried the way to face what frightens me. In a book about the Japanese Zen teacher and philosopher Dogen Zenji by Shinshu Roberts, the author quotes Dogen and other teachers on facing what we don’t like. The mental states that we wish would just disappear, he says, might just reveal the wisdom that we need. We don’t find wisdom in a vacuum. There are things we must put off; it’s difficult to talk about wisdom when our mind is focused on survival. Yet our lives are so much better when we can bring as much awareness as possible to whatever we face.

 

Maybe if we can just stop what we’re doing, and sit, stand, exercise, or take a walk in a beautiful area; maybe take a breath. Feel our feet on the floor. For one minute we can take a holiday and feel this moment, now, so fully we won’t have the space to imagine later. Maybe when it’s possible and with as much awareness as possible, we can write down or dance out the thoughts in our mind or the feelings in our body, without editing or hiding them. Then we will better perceive how to face the next moment, no matter what occurs. And, if we haven’t done so already, we can be relaxed yet alert when we vote.

 

A last argument before the election:

A week before election day, Kamala Harris gave a powerful final argument for her campaign. She said we all know who DT is and what he’d delver, more chaos, hate, and division. More power and wealth to the rich at the expense of the rest of us. For example, his 10-50% tariff on imported goods would raise the burden on most of us hundreds to  thousands of dollars while proportionally reducing the burden on the rich. Many economists warn his plans could crash the economy.

 

But what needs to be said more clearly is that the economy and the cost of living is not a separate issue from that of democracy….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.