How do we make sense of senseless times?

In a lifetime of traveling across every state in this nation, I have seen both the fragility and the strength of America. Its perplexity and wonder. Its wretchedness and innate goodness. We are complex and contradictory humans, living in the midst of unbelievable natural splendor that we habitually despoil.

If one follows politics, it would also be easy to conclude that the land of the free has lost its mind to support a wannabe dictator.

Just eighty years after we joined our WWII Allies to strike a debilitating blow against fascism on June 6th, 1944, one of our political parties is preparing to nominate a man for president who has made disparaging remarks about those who died in war serving their country while speaking in glowing terms about authoritarian strongmen around the globe.

Last Thursday was the commemoration of D-Day. World leaders and more than two dozen U.S. veterans gathered above Omaha Beach at the Normandy American Cemetery, “where the remains of 9,388 Americans, many of whom were killed on D-Day, are buried.” In his speech, President Biden reminded us that “Hitler and those with him thought democracies were weak, that the future belonged to dictators.”

“’The men who fought here became heroes not because they were the strongest or toughest or were fiercest—although they were,’ Biden said, ‘but because they . . . knew, beyond any doubt, there are things that are worth fighting and dying for. 

Freedom is worth it. Democracy is worth it. America is worth it. The world is worth it—then, now, and always.’”

A few weeks after that successful invasion, U.S. troops were given a pamphlet that reminded them of the stakes.

“Fascism, the U.S. government document explained, ‘is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state. The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.’”

Sadly, one of our political parties appears ready to completely give up on government by the people.

A former president and the presumed 2024 nominee of the Republican Party—who has promised government by the few and for the few—is a convicted felon. Thirty-four times over. A jury of his peers found that he falsified records to cover up a hush money payment to a sex worker in order to change the results of the 2016 election. The news media, for the most part, refuses to say the obvious out loud.

He’s also surrounded himself with individuals who subvert the rule of law for personal gain. Trump’s campaign chairman, deputy campaign manager, personal lawyer, chief strategist, National Security Adviser, Trade Advisor, Foreign Policy Adviser, campaign fixer, and company CFO are also convicted felons.

Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley noted, “With Lincoln, they had a team of rivals. With Trump, you have a team of felons.”

In addition, his business was found guilty of fraud and a jury held him liable for sexual abuse—rape, in other words—in a civil trial. And perhaps the worst charges against him as a former president—inciting a riot to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election and stealing state secrets—are bogged down as judges and justices forget their oath of office and follow his bidding while Congressional Republicans create fake scandals to divert our attention.

Former Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles captured the essence of this latter playbook in 2013.

Five years ago, the Post described the “remarkable universe of criminality” surrounding the former president. It has become even worse. And yet some think his reelection is imminent. The Republicans seem intent on backing Donald Trump no matter what he says or does and no matter how much of the American public disagrees with its policies.

I subscribe to the “Do more, worry less and go win this election” mindset, but I can see how the prospect of a Trump return can lead to despair.

Heartbreak and rage have been “manipulated by unscrupulous persons in power . . . creating scapegoats, demonizing and pitting communities and families against one another, eroding our ability to see how we are still and truly deeply connected.”

Poet and songwriter Carrie Newcomer asks, “How do we live in these times?” She wrestles to find “the most effective and true to my soul ways to respond.”

“I must continue to find courage, comfort and grounding in the things that make sense, things like love, beauty, wonder, daily gratitude and awe, the natural world, our default inclination to be decent and kind to those we encounter. I must continue to lean into joy, for the goodness of life for the gift it is—joy being different than happiness and at its heart is its own kind of resistance to despair and the politics of rage. All I know to do is to live as well as I can, with as much love as I know how to give, speak truth even when it’s uncomfortable but be as kind as possible.”

Those endeavors to divide us and make us feel powerless, she writes, are just “a kind of politics” and not the true shape of reality.

“The truth is—we are great with love and we are so very powerful . . . Let us keep grounding ourselves in what makes sense in senseless times. Let us remember to lean into beauty and pull up the water from a well of common goodness, let us be brave and true, always reaching just a little further than we thought possible.”

Rebecca Solnit has written that joy is a way to support the work which hope demands.

“Your opponents would love you to believe that it’s hopeless, that you have no power, that there’s no reason to act, that you can’t win. Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away.”

There’s work to do. Leaning into joy supports the demands that hope makes of us. Drawing water from a well of common goodness provides the nourishment needed to press forward on this important task.

More to come . . .

DJB

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See my disclaimer for politics-related posts.

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Image by ddzphoto from Pixabay