Coping With the Fear and Loathing

It’s all about the price of eggs (stupid).

We have now learned that, for the majority of the millions of Americans who voted Tuesday, how much they pay for their eggs is more important than what Trump instigated against our government on Jan. 6; his vow to deport millions of immigrants who aren’t here legally; his plan to impose tariffs on U.S. imports (which will cost the average American household $4,000 per year); his indifference to the war in Ukraine and its people, which will lead to a Putin victory; his plan to order a massive increase in oil and gas production amid the climate change crisis; his intention to make the U.S. Justice Department his own puppet; his vow to fire special counsel Jack Smith so as to avoid going on trial for the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol; and his plan to put anti-vaccer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of federal health and food programs. (No more fluoride in our water!)

Did anybody think about any of this while voting to put this maniacal thug back in the White House? Probably not. American historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote on substack: “Many voters who were using their vote to make an economic statement are likely going to be surprised to discover what they have actually voted for.”

Well, they shouldn’t be surprised. We’ve all seen this movie before. And it doesn’t have a happy ending.

Indeed, Dallas Morning News columnist Carl Leubsdorf had this warning: “Get set for a rough ride. It might make Trump’s first term look like a walk in the park.”

Who saw this disaster coming? Not the pollsters; most of them had Kamala Harris with a narrow lead. Certainly not the Democratic Party’s “guru” James Carville, who became famous during his work with Bill Clinton’s campaign for saying repeatedly: “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Carville seemed to forget his own mantra this time around, and it allowed us to get our hopes up. Night after night, there he was on MSNBC, smiling, speaking in his charming folksy Southern drawl from his home, predicting Harris was going to win. And maybe by a big margin.

What say you now, James? He posted a message saying the election outcome was “sickening.” He said he’s entered “a very, very dark tunnel right now. I have to re-evaluate. I’m sure I’ll come up with something to make me feel good again, but right now it’s hard.”

You got that right. I’m writing this with my “Kamala Harris 47” cap on my head. The “Harris-Walz” lawn sign is still sitting outside my home in New Haven. (There are plenty of others in my shattered neighborhood). Some day I’ll have to put the hat in a closet. Some day I’ll have to take down that lawn sign. Not today.

In recent weeks my wife and I sat alongside our neighbors, writing letters and postcards to likely Democratic voters targeted by progressive organizations, urging them to vote. Now we’re asking ourselves: did that do anything?

I’m in my mid-70s, so I have the benefit of some perspective — unlike my daughters, 32 and 30, who are re-living the Trump Nightmare of 2016, which befell us right after they moved to Los Angeles.

I lived through the Nixon-McGovern Nightmare; I worked full-time for the McGovern campaign in Marysville, Ca., a small town near Sacramento. At least we saw that one coming. Somehow we got through the aftermath. Watergate helped — the delightful sight of The Trickster climbing into that helicopter on the White House lawn and flying away after he was forced to resign for his criminal conduct. (Could Trump’s criminal acts catch up with him?)

Soon afterward we got Jimmy Carter! Later we got Barack Obama! Twice! And Joe Biden beat Trump!

But today I don’t recognize my own country.

What now? My wife is wondering, along with many other sickened Americans, if we should leave the country. I tell her: No! Resist! I’m not going to leave my country because of that schmuck.

I might head to Washington to protest his inauguration on Jan. 20. I’m not sure about that; let’s see what kind of nonsense he pulls before he takes over again. I sat-in, in the streets against Nixon. I might do it to fight Trump.

As we tried to go to sleep Tuesday night, after I turned out the lights, after it had become clear at 11 p.m. that darkness had fallen and was spreading across America, I reminded my wife we still have our daughters, our health, our comfortable home, our nice neighbors, the city we love, our loving dog Jolene (still licking us, oblivious!), our cats Eva and Samantha.

Jesus, was it hard to sleep! Was it hard getting up the next morning! But we did. My friend Bob also found it rough getting out of bed — but he did, and then he drove downtown to the headquarters of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services. He texted his friends: “Wednesday is the day I go to distribute food to immigrant and refugee families. Went there and got some perspective. A lot of them looked afraid or tentative. They are here with no place to go back to.”

Bob fed them. We keep on keepin’ on.

My wife and I, sitting bleary-eyed across from each other at breakfast, decided that later we would drive up the East shore, our comfort zone, to have comfort food at Lenny’s Indian Head Inn in Branford. We sat on the deck overlooking a beautiful expansive marsh on a warm and sunny day. We admired the osprey nest platform in the distance. And we vowed to protect nature from Trump. Then I ordered a Guinness stout and a cheeseburger. We have to take care of ourselves.

On our way back to New Haven the d.j., clearly trying to console people and cheer us up, played Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing.” Yeah, I’m still singing it.

On Wednesday night we avoided most of our usual diet of MSNBC and CNN analysts. We simply couldn’t bear it. But we did tune in long enough to hear Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson tell us we shouldn’t allow Trump to get into our heads.

And then we started bingeing “Veep.” Season one.

Also, I have stuck to my neighborhood running, for much-needed therapy. I have previously written about the Trumpster Chalker, who messes up the sidewalks along my running route with his rantings. Of course now he’s back, and in the mood to gloat. He wrote “Cry, libtards.” I crossed out “libtards” with my chalk and substituted “America.”

And he chalked “Trump” on the base of a fence above the sidewalk. I wrote “Jail” before that vile name. Close by, I chalked “Resist.”

Father up on the sidewalk, one of my allies in The Chalk War has written: “Joy.” I recognize her message; she’s used it before. What she is telling us is this: MAGA can never take our joy away from us, not for very long.

Yes, and this is how Kamala Harris concluded her mature, noble concession speech: “We need to organize, to mobilize and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together...Fill the sky with the light of a billion brilliant stars, the light of optimism, of faith, of truth and service. Let that work guide us, even in the face of setbacks, toward the extraordinary promise of the United States of America.”