Nasty Woman, Or Why We Should Stay in Trump's America

I had a cute, jubilant post all lined up to celebrate the election of our first female president, but that must be shelved and instead, I write this with a heavy heart.

            This is not a missive in which I try to convince you that Trump’s America won’t be so bad: I’m not delusional. And I won’t tell you that this result isn’t disheartening or dire: it is. Rather, I wish to express that those of us opposed to a Trump Presidency have a moral duty awaiting us.

            Most of the presidential elections of my lifetime have been accompanied by declarations of “if so and so wins, I’m moving to Canada.” And either the election results turn out to be more favorable, or people were only joking and mostly decide to stay. In this election, people have seemed more serious than ever of their intent to remove themselves to Canada or elsewhere. I can’t say I blame you. Who wouldn’t want this guy as Prime Minister?

Justin Trudeau and his son on Halloween, dressed up as the Little Prince and the Pilot.

But if you are someone who has both the means and the desire to expatriate yourself, I urge you to reconsider.

            Not to drag out a tired metaphor, but whenever I teach high school students about the rise of the Nazis in Germany, someone almost inevitably asks, “Why didn’t people just leave?” The answer is that a lot of people did leave, and a lot of people tried to or wanted to leave but couldn’t. I am not suggesting that Jews or other endangered people should not have fled Nazi Germany. But Trump – despite the convenient historical metaphor – is not Hitler. He doesn’t have complete control of the country – yet. But if everyone who is willing and able to stand up to him leaves, we pave the way for him. If everyone with the means uproots and moves elsewhere, who will be left in America but Trump supporters and the poor and disaffected who cannot protect themselves from the reign of sexist White supremacy? If we want to turn America back from this abyss, we have to stay.

            We are a country that is not listening to each other. We are a country that does not understand each other. The Age of the Internet has made infinitely more information available at our fingertips, and yet we are not more tolerant or more open minded. Instead, each of us are cocooned in our own personal echo chamber where our own beliefs and opinions reverberate back at us. I have doubts that this post will make it out of my own echo chamber, but my words are for you who are listening to my same echo.

            In his 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity, Jon Stewart sagely said, “If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.” In the years to come, we need to turn down the volume, and listen. We need to get to know each other as a country, to understand each other’s problems, and fears, each other’s hopes and dreams, each other’s wants and needs. We need to break out of our echo chambers and help others break free of theirs. Only then can we have peace and reconciliation.

            This is a tall order and there is no easy way to do it – but it starts by bringing people together for civil discourse, by bringing back (some of) the rules of polite society, by restoring political debates to their intended purpose, rather than as the centerpiece of political bread and circuses. How? If I knew, I would be out there organizing, instead of sitting at my kitchen table writing a blog post.

            In the eyes of Donald Trump, the press is unfair and Hillary Clinton is a “nasty woman.” And I believe that those of us who oppose Trump must take a page out of her book and be “nasty.” Not in the normal definition of the word nasty which connotes incivility, but by the definition of our President Elect. (Yes, our President Elect.) That is to say that we should calmly continue to call him out when he is lying and stand up to him when he is a bully. We should oppose him through the democratic process and through the exercise of our First Amendment Rights. We should encourage a press corps that is independent and rigorous, not sensationalist. And we must never blink in this staring contest that will hopefully last no more than four years.

            This will not be easy. This will not be fun. But our country has been to the brink and back before. To leave now is to give up on the struggle before it has even begun. To emigrate, is to abandon your country now when it needs you the most.

            The genie won’t go back in the bottle. We are now all living The Curse: “May you live in interesting times.”