Recovering from Election Shock (Essay by Bob Racine)

Recovering from Election Shock (Essay by Bob Racine)

At least half the nation woke up on Wednesday morning November 9 and encountered a severe shock.  As supporters of Hillary Clinton my wife Ruby and I were among them.  These several days later we are still a bit unsteady and out of focus from her defeat at the hands of Donald Trump.  We feel bruised, affronted, and even slightly traumatized.  At the very least the news was disillusioning, and we find ourselves asking each other and no one else in particular the dreadful question: What happens next?  But whatever Mr. Trump takes it upon himself to do after the Inauguration on January 20, we know that before we can expect ourselves to regain our sense of balance and brace for the contrary wind that may soon be blowing, we have to apply the first aid required for newly depressed and crushed spirits.  

It is my habit to begin each and every day by engaging in my own personal devotions, before I even eat breakfast or hop on the day’s agenda.  That morning was a slight exception.  After rising from bed I was so eager to get the final word about the election that I skipped to the front door and picked up the Washington Post off our front walkway where each morning it is faithfully delivered.  When I read the headline I experienced a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach before the emotions I have already described kicked in.  To be perfectly honest I was suddenly in no mood for prayer or meditation.  But I pushed through that resistance and got right to it, as downcast in spirit as I was.

Now what could I say to the God of the universe at a moment such as that?  After complaining to the Great One and baring my feeling of dismay, what else? – I did what I have been instructed by the New Testament to do.  I prayed for my enemy – well, not my enemy exactly; I knew without giving it much thought that Trump had not done me any particular harm.  It was and is his mindset that I and millions of others are up against.  Before I further report upon what I did in that quiet moment, I would like to summon the shade of an Old Testament character.  

“Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” has arrested the attention of millions of youngsters and young-at-heart adults over the four decades since it broke loose upon the stage and the video circuits.  Joseph is the youngest of thirteen sons of Jacob, descendent of the venerated Abraham.  He is portrayed in the play as a handsome, innocent and pleasant young person that any child or teen could smilingly identify with – in other words, very brotherly loving.  But he is in actuality a well-scrubbed version of the conceited, precocious Daddy’s boy, brash and narcissistic, that shows up in the original Biblical narrative.  The father Jacob is clueless about his favorite son’s irritating traits.  Jacob even has the effrontery to dress the boy in a sparkling coat, while apparently leaving the twelve others in ragged garments.  Not until Joseph begins spouting off about his dreams of royal authority does Daddy take some issue with him. 

Then comes the dream, flung into the face of his brothers.  It goes something like this: “I dreamed that we were all stars in heaven, but that I was the brightest star of all and you my brothers bowed down and worshipped me.”  This is too much for the brothers; they gang up on him and sell him to slave marketers headed for Egypt.  Frankly I would have felt like shipping him off myself, after hearing this outburst of pomposity.  But of course most of you know the story.  The brothers tell the father that his favorite son is dead, gored by an animal.  Years pass, as Joseph manages to win the Pharaoh’s favor enough to be freed from his bondage and get himself appointed to a high government post.  As it so happens, his family back home, suffering from a widespread famine along with thousands of others, comes begging to the Pharaoh’s food distributor, whom they finally recognize as the presumably dead brother, and they are all reconciled.       

I will not give further details except to say that Joseph, older and more mature, goes through much soul searching and inward struggle when he finds himself in the very position of power over his relatives, about whom he had so brashly prophesied as a youth.  Reconciliation does not come easily.

The upshot of the story for me, as I am sure it is for many others, is the old saw about being careful for what you most want and hope for, you just might get it.  Joseph discovers that governing is not as simple a matter as he has assumed.  It is not some fancy dressed affair or some ongoing circus.  And that is what my prayer for Trump was all about and still is.  I pray that once in office, or at least within the first year of his administration, and confronted by the complex business of governing and the knottiness of the issues he has treated so sophomorically during his campaign, he will be sobered and – far-fetched as it may sound – perhaps humbled by what he finds on his plate.  He has already softened some of his daggered rhetoric.  The people he wanted to bar from the country are no longer Muslims per se.  Now he claims he just wants to keep out people from countries that support terrorism.  One thing that may do much to bring about some change in his mindset about immigrants is for the government agencies, in charge of vetting those who apply for entrance, to invite him to peruse and study just how strict the process is.  Take him through the rigor of it and the thoroughness of it!  Recently on 60 Minutes we heard people who have been admitted after a years-long wait speak of just how hard it really is to even gain a foothold in the U.S., much less obtain citizenship.  He needs to meet immigrants and become familiar with immigrant families.  He should be given a thorough education about the country he has decided to lead.  He should be vetted!

I confess that there is a spiteful part of me that wants him to be a total failure as the Chief Executive, so that I can become smug about the balloted choice of him to lead, a choice in which I did not participate.  But that would involve lying in wait to maybe sabotage his best efforts.  I am not interested in sabotage or in thorough demonization.  I agree with what Obama said to him when they met for the first time in the Oval Office.  He said he wanted Trump to succeed, because if he fails, the country fails, the people are shortchanged.  I hope he can do something about reducing unemployment.  How can I ask him to keep an open mind, if I’m not willing to do the same?  I hope he can do some needed repair work on our unbalanced economy.  I hope he can improve the condition of our cities.  I hope he can contribute toward the plans already being put in place for the updating of our nation’s infrastructure.   And I really am hoping and praying that he will surprise us all and build healthy personal relations with minorities.  Nobody would be more pleased than I in any of these cases.

Presidents have surprised us before.  Who would have ever suspected that a practically unknown individual like Harry Truman, a temperamental, dogmatic, rude, undiplomatic, opinionated snapper, chosen for Veep in 1944 as a result of some inner party compromising, who knew nothing about the atomic bomb or nuclear power when Roosevelt’s death forced him into office, would in his eight years in the White House racially integrate the armed services, preside over the forging of the GI Bill, give impetus to the Marshall Plan that did so much to heal postwar Europe and recognize the then new State of Israel!  Who would have suspected that a deep south politician like Lyndon Johnson would upon John F. Kennedy’s death be responsible for the passage of more Civil Rights legislation than any President before or since has ever been able to claim?  And Abraham Lincoln had more enemies than a sick dog has fleas when he took office; who would have thought this backwoods rail splitter could bring about at least the legal emancipation of slavery that would stand the test of time over what is now one hundred and fifty years and counting?

So I hope I have made it clear that in this posting I have not come to praise our new Caesar OR to bury him.  I am asserting my allegiance to my country and am expressing my appreciation for our democratic form of government that allows for such a peaceful exchange of leadership, even in the midst of such sharp social and political division as has become so evident during this past Presidential campaign.  I am saying that since we now have a new President, let us give him a fair chance.  My prayers have led me to once again embrace that opportunity.  It is the only alternative we as a civilized nation have at our disposal other than the chaos of military coup or bloody revolution.    

To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.