With Arms Wide Open

When I woke up this morning, Donald Trump was still the president-elect. So that sucks. I was about to write “on the other hand,” but there is no other hand. We have one hand, and it’s a bad hand. Back in 2016, I remember feeling the same despondence, coupled with the urgent sense that “we have to do something!” This year, and for the foreseeable future, I don’t anticipate feeling any of that - I don’t have to do shit.

I’ve already done what I was meant to do: I spoke up, wrote essays, knocked on a few doors, voted. I’m done. There will be no more DC marches for me. I’m not joining the goddamned “Resistance.” Why resist? This is what the nation wants.

In a way, I’m relieved that the race ended up being an electoral rout. Trump now has the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. The party is his, from snout to tail. The Republican Congress is his Congress, stuffed with his loyal acolytes. As I wrote in my last piece, my priorities are not theirs, and I have lost all desire to stand in their way. Let them do what they will do and I will keep my counsel on the sidelines and hope for the best.

That doesn’t mean I’ll stay quiet. Just that I’m under no illusions that anything I say or do matters. Not that I believed it did before, either, but at least I now have the additional benefit of knowing my views about pretty much anything aren’t shared by a majority of my countrymen. That’s helpful because I feel, to use a favorite Kamala phrase, “unburdened by what has been.” Which is good because I suspect the burdens we carry moving forward will be weighty enough all on their own.

He’s going to show us everything, take us higher, etc.

I’ll continue to write this Substack because it gives me a place to air my grievances. I’ll continue to speak on my TV show because it’s my job and I like the income. I’ll continue to do all the things I’m doing because I enjoy doing them, but don’t come to me with your petitions and your PSAs and your this-or-that. Don’t ask me to participate in your movements. I’m uninterested in joining anything or actually doing anything. My doing days are done, at least for the next little while. Let them have it. Let them do the doing.

The last time this man occupied the Oval Office we lurched from crisis to scandal to outrage and back to crisis. But gas was cheaper, I know, and I misunderstood how much that matters. Again: privileged, elite, etc. etc. Last time he occupied the Oval Office, he inherited a good economy. He will do so again and take full credit for it. Last time he alienated our allies and drew our antagonists into his fold. I imagine that will continue apace.

Otherwise, I make no predictions for what the second Trump administration will bring. Will he carry out his mass deportations? Will he slap tariffs on every iPhone and every pair of Nikes? Will he finish his goddamned wall? How much will he accommodate Vladimir Putin and/or accommodate Benjamin Netanyahu? I don’t know but I know my outrage is spent. Those with more energy than I currently possess can pick up the pitchforks. I’m just going to hang out here in my PJs for a minute.

I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do, though, and that’s blame Kamala Harris or Joe Biden for where we are. I think both of them did the right thing in this election. I loved the Harris campaign and I’m grateful for the energy and enthusiasm she brought to the table. The fault isn’t with them. The fault is with the rest of us for ignoring her competencies and choosing his malevolence.

But, again, I’ve been wrong about everything else so hopefully I’m wrong about how I characterize our once and future king. His fans believe he has the nation’s best interests at heart, so while I may never share their opinion, at least I have the power to throw up my hands and say, “It’s all yours.”

Look, we’re two days past Election Day. My numbness will probably fade in time. Yours might, as well. Or maybe yours already has and you’re hard at work knitting your pink pussy hats. We are all going to figure these next (at least) four years out separately and together. We will each do what we need to do in order to get through. For me, that’s going to mean taking a step back. A small step, most likely, since I’m physically incapable of keeping my mouth shut. But the part of me that held out hope for an America that holds my values? That part feels well and truly done. We’re not who I thought we were. We never will be.

I don’t know how to feel patriotic for a country that would choose this path with arms wide open. Last time one could make the argument that Trump was a political unknown. Not this time. Now we know exactly who and what he is, and like Oliver Twist holding up his paltry bowl of gruel, we have asked for more.

More is what we’re going to get. More insanity, more instability, more chaos, more lies. But now, with extra retribution! We will mourn the days when the feckless (to borrow half a phrase from my friend Sam Bee) Ivanka Trump was a “stabilizing influence.” We will miss the days when there were any stabilizing influences.

Elon Musk will soon be in charge of our federal budget. RFK will soon be in charge of our health. Stephen Miller will be carrying out our immigration policy. Steve Bannon will be cooking up bathtub meth in the Lincoln Bedroom. I’m good with all of it. Let them enact their agenda for the country and we’ll see where we land. Maybe all of their promises will come true: at the end of this term, maybeAmericans really will be richer, happier, more devoted to their families and to each other. Maybe the Ten Commandments really do belong in the classroom. Maybe the most vulnerable among us really are a threat. Maybe burning it all down will provoke fabulous new growth. And maybe Donald Trump really is the stable genius he’s claimed to be all along. I don’t know what’s going to happen but we’re all going to find out together.