OK, let’s get this out of the way.
I hate that Trump won. My weary core sighs that a walking embodiment of ignorance, denial, delusion and prejudice will be the steward of that grand, fractured country where my friends live. A country that desperately needs vision, healing and common purpose.
With dismay I see him gathering a team of ringwraiths in clown suits, high on their own tangled worldviews, floating away from reality, ready to trample the needs of their country rather than ministering to those needs. People whose only interest is for rich white men to have a world that wraps them in cotton wool.
I’m angry that it has happened now, in a crucial time when we need to be mobilising the best of our intelligence, compassion and creativity to steer the world away from peril and toward a brighter future.
Though in a way there’s an inevitability to it, as a symptom of human psychology working its way through. Like here in the UK, most of the people talking didn’t understand what the people listening needed to hear, and weren’t prepared to be 21st century leaders. Energies of dissatisfaction and hurt didn’t get helped or channelled, so they broke their banks.
But here are a couple of ameliorating factors. Trump will tell you how strong and great he is. But atmospheric physics will kick his ass and barely notice. Social and economic problems won’t go away. Reality will come up hard against his frothy pronouncements and his authority will ebb away. But there will be a whole lot of broken bodies, minds and spirits left in the wake of that. A lot of people who don’t have gold towers to take refuge in.
The second thing is more hopeful. Because a lot of people can see that future coming, and it’s galvanising them to step up even more than before. I’ve seen organisations like Avaaz and Open Democracy committing to a new level of activity. Lots of individuals are becoming more vocal too, and seeking channels for action.
It’s the classic conflict of love vs fear. These are the people who carry a great love for our world and its people. Who see truth and feel suffering and loss mirrored in their own hearts. Their tower is not built of gold but of connection and fire. This time round, it’s the good guys who have the burning eye. The other tower is blind.
This isn’t a battle between tribes of people, though it’s easy to forget that. It’s tension and friction between ways of being. Love and fear. Awake and asleep. Vision and darkness.
And it’s not just about Trump. He’s a particularly dramatic symptom, allowing more people to see the lower self in action. You can also look at the neofeudalist government in the UK, or the rise of the far right in Europe, or oppression the world over.
We’ve had so many chances to head off bad things, and too often we haven’t been up to the challenge. Maybe, just maybe, the prospect of a dark lord in control of the supposed bastion of freedom will rouse the world to better.