The Challenge of Finding Hope in the Trump Era
By: Maria Beuthien Johnston
Tags: Hope, Activism, Trumpism, Politics And Protest, Politics

Photo by John Vicente

In an interview, when asked if she feels like her life’s work for peace and equality made a difference, folk legend Joan Baez said she lives with a lot of cynicism and not much hope. That despair is plenty evident in Baez’s last album, Blowing Down the Wind, in which she sings about wanting a new world, since this one is “nearly gone.” But she also says this: “I did what I did, and I do what I do, anyway.” I think that short sentence sums up what’s true for many of us, especially these last four years. It’s tough to be politically aware and maintain a rosy outlook on the future. Still, we carry on, even on days when we can’t summon hope.

Fifty years past the revolutionary ’60s, when anything seemed possible, we’ve had to reconcile ourselves to the fact that despite Civil Rights laws and political correctness, people themselves didn’t change as much as we thought. Despite that, we went into the 2016 election season feeling pretty good after eight years of Barack Obama’s relentless optimism and the certainty that the first female president would follow the first black one. The election of Donald Trump was a cataclysmic shock. And what followed was one devastating gut punch after another: black people brutally murdered by police. Kids yanked away from parents at the border. Long lines at food banks. White supremacists carrying assault rifles into a state capitol. Millions of sick and dead Americans in a mismanaged pandemic. And instead of addressing these problems as the public servants they are supposed to be, our representatives worked solely to help the rich and didn’t blink an eye at destroying our democracy in order to stay in power. They helped foster a new culture of lies and “alternate facts,” with the result that half of Americans can no longer talk to the other half because there’s no foundation of truth to build a conversation on. All because of an incompetent, dangerous president who wasn’t removed from office, no matter how openly and severely he desecrated it. And underlying all of this is climate change, which threatens our very survival, and the knowledge that we are running out of time. We may already be out of time. And instead of electing our best people and rising to the challenge, half the country is doing the opposite.

When I ask people how they maintain hope in the face of all this, they give me varying answers. Some of them believe that the planet will be saved by humanity’s innovative spirit, and peace and equality will win in the end because the arc bends toward justice, however slowly. They point to the election of Biden/Harris as a sign that we’ve righted the ship and gotten back on track. Others look at history and previous challenges faced by humankind that seemed insurmountable, like the Great Depression and World War II, but then were conquered. Many get their hope from belief in a God who will fix the environment and everything else we’ve so completely screwed up. And then there are those who just choose to be unaware of what’s happening in the United States and insist they have no interest whatsoever in politics.

That last mindset is held mostly by my white friends. And even though that mindset might be advantageous for physical and mental health, at least according to psychological studies about the damaging effects of anxiety, it’s a luxury not everyone has. Non-white people in America have never had the option of ignoring politics, since they’re fighting for their survival and their right to be equal human beings every time they vote. For many white people, the past four years were a lesson in what it feels like to be a minority: voiceless, ignored, and under the control of a government that doesn’t care about your welfare or survival. The fact that so many white people believed in that government and voted for it not once, but twice, is proof they are living in a bubble that has never bumped up against oppression or the cold, hard truth.

Seventy or so million Americans voted to stay in that bubble because it’s a comfortable place, a place where you never have to worry about losing hope, ensconced as you are in the firm belief that we are the greatest country on earth and always will be. It’s certainly a lot easier than admitting our democracy is built on an unfair system of white male supremacy that leaves many of our neighbors out and that is slowly but surely squeezing the middle class out of existence. Continuing to believe the myth about our exceptionalism in order to stay comfortable is hurting and killing our fellow Americans along with our wildlife and our planet. And those of us who see all this are feeling pretty frustrated with those who don’t.

There have been so many times these last four years when I’ve wanted to throw my hands up and say, “People are a lost cause. I give up.” But by and large, when push came to shove, that’s not what we did. While courage died completely in the Republican half of our government during this era, ordinary Americans marched and rallied and stormed their representatives’ offices. Though we didn’t always agree about the best ways forward, we raised funds and wrote letters and signed up new voters and showed up to the election in huge numbers, sometimes bringing a folding chair and a bag of food because we knew we would stay put even if it took 14 hours, and in January we will watch the swearing-in of a new president and a vice president whose gender and skin color finally represents those of us who have never been represented in this highest office before. That’s a reason for hope. Looking around at all those people like me who stand up and believe in a better, more just America is what energizes me to keep going. And on those darkest days when I just can’t find hope, I do like Joan Baez says. I go out and I do it anyway.