Bring On The Apocalypse?

By RAHN ADAMS

Yes, yes. I know what you’re already thinking. We’re all tired of politics. It’s everywhere we look—on the TV news, in the headlines of newspapers that no one reads anymore, all over Facebook and Twitter, which too many people read (or do we just look at the memes?), and, if not a topic at the office water cooler or in the church pew, it’s discussed anywhere people can gather and express their opinions freely.

But why?

No, the question isn’t why are we tired of politics; or even why are so many people, including me, concerned about it to the point of distraction. The question also isn’t why can’t we express opinions freely on the job or at church. We all know the answers to those questions—or, at least, we know our own three-o’clock-in-the-morning-lying-awake-in-bed answers to them, whether what each of us feels and maybe even fears is rational or not.

The question is: Why are political news and views everywhere we look now? Why is your Facebook news feed clogged with political posts, and not with cute photos of puppies and kittens?

Take a few minutes to answer that question before you read on. Listen to a few tunes on YouTube—like R.E.M.’s popular “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” or Jimmy Buffett’s lesser known “Apocalypso,” if you’d like to get up and dance around wherever you are right now. No one will mind. Trust me. Their eyes are all glued to their own smart phones or computer screens.

OK. Ready to share your responses to the above question? First, let me guess your answer:

People are still arguing about politics because one side won and one side lost, and the losers refuse to accept those facts. All the losers should just be quiet, pay their taxes like good citizens, wait until the next election to respectfully consider all the candidates’ positions and then voice their choices quietly in the privacy of the voting booth, and, in the meantime, start each day by saying the Pledge of Allegiance and saluting the flag, and then every night at bedtime pray for Almighty God to bless President Trump and Vice President Pence.

Did I come close to your answer? Yes? No? Well, if I did, you can stop reading now, because I’m going to make some comments that you probably won’t like—that is, unless you’re more thoughtful and open-minded than the average partisan voter.

Really. If you think the issue is as simple as that—that folks who oppose the president are doing so simply because their feelings are hurt over Hillary Clinton’s electoral college loss or because they’re godless Communists (even though it’s Trump who is cozying up to a Communist dictator) or because they’re un-American in some other way—then you aren’t going to appreciate anything else that I’m going to write here. Thanks for clicking on the link to this essay. Maybe we can still be “friends” at work or church, if not on Facebook. And please don’t be offended by those quotation marks.

If I didn’t guess your answer—and if you’ve read this far—I’m glad. There’s hope for us all yet.

Here’s my answer to the above question: Why is political stuff everywhere? Why can’t we get away from it? Because virtually everything we do as civilized beings—shoot, even as uncivilized beings—as Americans and as citizens of the world is affected by what goes on in Washington, in the chambers of Congress and the Supreme Court, in the Oval Office, and in the mind, words and actions of Donald Trump, who is now the most powerful man on earth. That is not an exaggeration. That is reality.

What is affected?

Basic stuff. The air we breathe. The water we drink. The food we eat. The healthcare we need. The education we seek. The employment we hold. And everything else. That is not an exaggeration. It’s reality. And it shouldn’t be entertainment.

This whole situation with Donald Trump and many of the people who worked so hard to get him elected and are now treating him like an American messiah (and saying as much) makes me wonder if all they care about is money, or if they’re all so fatalistic that they want the world to end now.

It’s almost as if they’re saying, Come on, everybody! Let’s go ahead and make The Revelation of St. John the Divine come to pass! It’s in the Bible, isn’t it? And the Bible is the literal Word of God, isn’t it? And it’s gonna happen sooner or later, isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?

So what do all us losers do? How do we go forward? If it’s any consolation, based on Trump’s first six days in office, our club is getting larger and larger, whether every new member knows it yet or not. And there is strength in numbers—even if the Electoral College numbers differ.

The thought occurred to me the other day that only three things truly unite a divided people, and if you’ll look back over your own life, I think you’ll agree.

First, National Tragedy brings us together. Just a few examples during my lifetime: The deaths of JFK, MLK and RFK. The space shuttle Challenger disaster. The Oklahoma City and Boston bombings. 9/11. The Columbine, Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech shootings, among too many others. Hurricane Katrina. Tragedy unites us so long as we can recall the shock we felt and the grief we experienced.

Second, Great Accomplishment can unite us: NASA’s space program and the moon landings. The rescues of the Quecreek miners in Pennsylvania and Baby Jessica from a well in Midland, Texas. Feats of sports champions on all levels. The Miracle on Ice. The Red Sox. The Cubs. We all tend to get behind long shots, comebacks and Cinderella stories, whether in sports or in regular life.

And then there’s War. That’s the third thing that—at least initially—unifies us as a people. Think about it. Uncle Sam wants YOU! I’m proud to be an American! Red, white and blue—these colors don’t run! And then, eventually, the anti-war protests begin when the initial shock and awe wears off. Men and women, soldiers and civilians—and even children—die. We eventually come together again to bring the war to an end, but at what cost?

After the last contested election—when President George W. Bush scored an electoral college win over Vice President Al Gore—what happened that brought us back together as Americans? Yes, you’re right again. Nothing happened. We all just decided to stop arguing and put our differences aside, to love one another despite our conflicting opinions about hanging chads and absentee ballots and who should have won the election, and to sit in a big circle, hold hands and sing “Kumbaya, My Lord” until the cows came home….

Huh? That isn’t what happened?

Yeah, I’m just feeding you some alternative facts. But I don’t have to tell you the Truth. You already know the Truth. The Truth was hard to handle then. The Truth is hard to handle now. And the Truth will be even harder to handle next time.

So what do we do going forward?—I mean, other than not writing anything online that we wouldn’t mind reading aloud, in person, to a room filled with a cross-section of Americans.

In his essay “Resistance to Civil Government,” Henry David Thoreau wrote and had earlier spoken (196 years ago tonight, as a matter of fact) about how an individual might respond to unjust laws. He says in part (italicized emphasis mine): “If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth—certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.”

Right now, that’s the best advice I can find. That last part sounds like something even Jesus might have said, huh?—the part about not obeying laws that hurt someone else unjustly. Unjust laws do exist and always will. That’s reality. So I think it is good advice.

Peaceful resistance. It was good enough for Gandhi. And for Martin Luther King. And for other great women and men—whether we know their names or not—who stood up against injustice peacefully when the time came to do so.

Peacefully.

So that advice is good enough for little old me, too. But will I have the courage to take it to heart when the time comes? And it will.