I Hope to Look Like a Fool
In the Aftermath of the Election
Last night, I watched a dream crumble before my eyes. I’d hoped for a repudiation of Trumpism, and with it of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, the flouting of democratic norms, threats of violence against the press, and so on and so forth.
Not only were those hopes of a repudiation dashed, the results were a ringing endorsement of the way of Pontius Pilate over the way of Jesus Christ. As a theologian, I’m describing this in terms of the religious tradition to which I adhere. In some cases—too many cases—the people making this option share that religion with me. But not all Trumpism unfolds in religious terms (except insofar as he is adored with idolatrous fervor by his followers, demanding the sort of absolute loyalty that ought to be reserved for one’s god alone).
I’ve spent the morning thinking about what I’ll say to my class of undergraduates when we meet later today. I have no idea what the temperature will be when I enter the room, and I don’t know what direction things will go, but as I’ve gathered my thoughts, this is what I want to say to them.
And because so much of it applies beyond my classroom, I share it here. TLDR: We’re all in this together, whether we like it or not. And I hope that I wind up looking like an absolute fool.
I want to acknowledge that folks in this room may be feeling all sorts of different ways about it: relieved, terrified, indifferent, all points in between. And I hope you’ll hold space for your classmates for whom this is a scary or discouraging time.
I also want to state clearly and unequivocally that however you’re feeling, however you voted: whether for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris or Jill Stein or if you wrote in Taylor Swift or if you didn’t vote at all. I am your professor and this classroom is a place where you belong and are welcome.
At the same time, I am not going to pretend that I think this outcome is a good, or even a neutral thing. I think it’s a very bad thing. That doesn’t change the commitment to this being a place where all of us are welcome and belong. We are a deeply divided and polarized nation right now, and if we cannot come together amid our disagreements and find ways to work together for the common good, we are in serious trouble. The only way forward is together.
I think folks could tell that I’ve been preoccupied with the election for the last few weeks, and at times I got the sense that some of you thought I was blowing it out of proportion, either in my concern that Trump might win or with what the effect of a Trump presidency would be.
As it turns out, if anything, I was underestimating how well Trump might perform. This was a decisive, unambiguous victory, both in the electoral college and the popular vote. Very clearly this is the will of the American people.
When it comes to the outcomes of a Trump presidency, I’m a straight white man and I live in a blue area of a blue state. My fundamental rights and wellbeing are very unlikely to be threatened during the next four years. But a lot of people whom I love are not straight, not white, not men. A lot of people whom I love don’t live in places where their safety and their rights are as secure. And Trump has promised a lot of things that threaten their safety, their rights, their wellbeing.
And faced with that, I hope I wind up looking foolish for over reacting. That’s a weird space to find myself in. I hope that he will not do the things he’s been promising to do, and if he doesn’t do them, then I’ll look like I was getting bent out of shape for nothing. But I’d rather look like a stupid alarmist than either have terrible things happen to people or to not take threats to do those terrible things seriously.
We’ve probably all heard the story of the boy who cried wolf, and we’ve probably heard its lesson described as something like don’t sound the alarm when there’s not really danger, but a friend of mine once convinced me that that’s the wrong lesson to take. Sure, the boy shouldn’t have joked about the wolf, but he’s a child, and the adults failed in their responsibility to come and help when he cried wolf that last time. People being irresponsible sometimes doesn’t excuse us from exercising responsibility. The moral of the story is take serious threats seriously.
As I transition out of these remarks, I want to close with three thoughts. First, I want to reiterate my commitment to all of you. Second, I want to reiterate that I’m open to being wrong about this, and in fact I hope to be proven wrong. Finally, and by way of a segue into today’s material: yesterday, before the returns started coming in, I was reading our assigned chapter, by Virgilio Elizondo, and as he spoke about the importance of dreams in bringing about real change—and specifically his dream of a universal mestizaje, one where the whole of the human family is embraced in all our differences, one in which we see those differences as enriching us instead of threatening us, one in which every person, every culture, is affirmed in its authentic uniqueness, even as they’re open to all the others, struck just the tone I needed in my uncertainty.
Elizondo noted that such dreams often seem unrealistic or threatening. And our current political climate seems to bear this out. There’s been so much rhetoric about preserving a white American way of life from the threats posed by migrants, whether they’re Haitian refugees in Ohio, or people crossing the southern border, whether documented or not, or by trans kids, who aren’t hurting anyone, but are subject to bullying, and with scary rates of homelessness and suicide if their identities aren’t supported by their families, and so on. But that dream remains compelling to me. Last night shows that it remains a dream, but it’s a dream worth fighting for.