I Make a Choice

Our democracy has taken a blow to the heart. How to respond?

Jan 03, 2025

One of the things we’ve lost recently is small talk. People jump right into saying what’s on their minds. For example, soon after November’s election a friend said, “Now when I meet someone new, I wonder who they voted for so that I know whether to trust them.” I’ve experience the same thing for months, and it still startles me.

There are other examples. Last week during a routine doctor visit, the nurse told me some of her family’s local history, naming people and places from long ago. “I want to be in the past right now,” she said.

Etowah, North Carolina, undated school photo. Why are we thinking about the past right now? Why would we even want to?

And a friend I met at the library told me she’s reading a lot of science fiction, which is unusual for her. She suggested I try Kim Stanley Robinson.

A flooded metropolis, from New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson

I wish I could follow her recommendation, but I can’t read any kind of fiction right now. I prefer to hold in my hands a memoir from the 1930s or’40s, especially a vintage copy.

Right: Gerald Brennan and his wife Gamel Woolsey with guest, Ralph Partridge; Yegen, Spain, early 1920’s. When Virginia and Leonard Woolf visited in 1923, Brennan wrote that in the evening firelight, “her face revealed the peace of a poet”.

What’s going on with this idealizing of the past, or, as for my friend, looking for imagined future worlds? Just a few months ago I was excited when Kamala Harris promised, “We are not going back.” Then, overnight in November, we shifted course. It’s disorienting.

So some of us are reacting to this shock by feeling suspended, and perhaps by doing nothing. For me there’s an edgy sense of bags hastily packed but still sitting in the hallway.

In this frozen moment in space and time, it’s up to each of us to choose between flight or fight.

Flight right now is beyond my imagination, unless it’s reading a vintage memoir. Meanwhile, the silence inside me allows for a small response, which I come to recognize as responsibility.

It means that my values haven’t changed. I’m aware that the people I have worked with and for, still need support. It’s still a fight.

We’ve been doing this a long time, and it’s still worth it

Recently, I felt the wind at my back when I read these words by Joseph O’Neill:

The most critical job of Democrats now is to fill their supporters with hope: a hopeless population is more vulnerable to autocracy. This requires them to consult with their base about how to fight Trump; and then to fight.
Their strategy must be twofold: first, do everything in their power and influence to oppose, slow down, and attach political costs to the Trump agenda. They must show exemplary fortitude and courage.
Second, start planning and campaigning for the midterms now. The House and Senate will be winnable.
If Democrats have to activate thousands of bots and hire thousands of trolls to penetrate Trumpist propaganda platforms they should do that. If they have to induce Senator Susan Collins to caucus or side with them, they should offer her every inducement. (Collins is up for reelection in 2026. If she stands down, a Democrat will likely succeed her.)
I am sure Trump will overreach. It is up to the opposition to make him pay for his overreaches. It is not our job to help him “succeed.” It’s not our job to “unite the country” or “turn down the temperature”. It’s our job to make Trump fail, fail again, fail worse.

For my family, for my democratic partners, and for my community, I realize my choice now is not between flight or fight. It’s only how I choose to join the fight again.