Hope Is a Discipline

This hateful regime wants to exhaust us and convince us that victory will be theirs. We have the individual and collective power to prove them wrong.

(Photo via Lixu via Getty Images)

Let’s not soft-pedal things. The daily news is plenty dispiriting. A network of concentration camps and the prospect of government-backed slave labor. A monstrous bill that will strip away health care from millions and cut food assistance for many millions more, all to make the rich richer. A nasty bill passed by spineless Republicans that hastens a lawless police state with $75 billion just for rounding up and detaining our fellow humans. An arrogant Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority that continues to expand the authoritarian power of a sociopathic president who ignores the Constitution. An entire party and an evil regime that has abandoned basic decency, embraces cruelty and hate, kowtows to a lawless tyrant, and is advancing a white nationalist agenda that makes our country smaller, meaner and poorer.

The list goes on and on, as they sadistically pursue an avalanche of cruelty and inflict immeasurable pain and suffering. It’s enough to make you doubt whether we can see our way through this dark and hateful period. America, the place that represented the promise of making life better, has been usurped by Trump’s America.

But here’s the thing. They want us to feel overwhelmed and exhausted. They want us to be full of despair and doubt that there’s a way to overcome this hostile regime and its grim dedication to death and destruction. They want to terrorize communities and strike fear amongst their opponents. This is the playbook to hasten their takeover by silencing dissent and convincing us that their victory is inevitable.

That’s why it’s important to pause as the daily onslaught of news feels insurmountable and makes you feel like giving up. Yes, that means thinking about how you can help: A call or email to an elected official, supporting a relevant advocacy group, sharing your views in person and online with your communities, participating in public protests, being a little bit kinder.

All of this can seem fruitless. Will my small actions really help drive change? But we cannot lose sight of how all these individual actions add up to reveal our collective power. I have said it before and I’l say it again: This government depends on the consent of the governed. Abusers of power will take only as much as we permit them.

But let’s zoom out for a moment to keep in mind this truth: Our large and diverse country is inexorably becoming a white minority country and the goose-stepping march by a tyrannical minority to dismantle our liberal democracy is motivated by their belief that they cannot let America achieve its egalitarian promise. There may be no words that they fear more than “all men are created equal.” Their war on America is not a sign that they are winning, but in fact a response to the reality that they are losing in their hunger to ram a white nationalist future down our throats.

These days and the days ahead will be full of pain and tragedy. There will be plenty more reasons to worry that we won’t find our way through. But I’m here to assert that we are living in a moment in time that we have the power to overcome—and indeed, we will. This is not just an idle hope, unrealistic and untethered.

It’s my belief based on many times in our history when the reality was bleak and the light was hard to find. But the Confederacy did lose, slavery was abolished, Hitler and the thousand-year-Reich did die by suicide in a bunker, Joseph McCarthy’s attack on Americans as communists ended with shame and his death from alcoholism at 48, John Lewis did not give up the dream of civil rights after a bloody beating on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Throughout our 249-year-old democratic project, Americans have forged ahead and refused to accept that the promise of freedom and justice cannot be realized and must be abandoned.

All this gives me hope. All this reminds me not to get overwhelmed by the daily madness. It doesn’t mean ignoring the tragedies and the ongoing nightmare. Rather it gives me hope that the fight is worth it and we can’t allow ourselves to indulge in the feeling that our democracy is finished.

Part of our task right now is to recognize that hope is a discipline, a way of grasping what’s at stake. This requires looking to the past and envisioning the future to strengthen our capacity to manage the present. Some days that task will be harder than others, but I beseech you to build that muscle and hold tightly to hope.

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I will be traveling over the next few weeks, part of my effort to breathe, to read, to play a little, to take some time to think freshly, to be with my family and friends, to see some new sights, to fill my reservoir for the months ahead. In the past, I have suggested that I have written about the dangers of burnout; I don’t feel that threat now. But I do know that it’s important to take some time away and benefit from a change of venue. (Indeed, my wife reminds me of the necessity of this.)

During this time, I will be sharing a number of previously published essays that I think are worth another look. I also may jump in and write something new if current events demand it. And I just might share some conversations and observations gathered while on the road.

As always, you, dear reader, and America, America will not drift far from my thoughts. In this time of turmoil, the responsibility to ensure the survival of our American project remain foremost.

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