Interconnection

And the Playbook: What unites Covid and Trump

I received the following missive from a woman whom I like and respect greatly but have never met. Her message struck me with its frankness and insight. She told me that I could reprint it in any form I desired, including all of the personal details and her name, but I have anonymized it a bit, just in case. That is, perhaps, my cowardice; certainly it is not hers. Friend, if you see this and would like to reveal yourself, please do so in the comments.

The author begins by referencing the episode of DarkHorse that we streamed two days after the election, in which I said, among other things, that I had a great sense of relief, and could not stop smiling.

Heather:

I completely agreed with your opening statement on DarkHorse last week, and felt exactly the same. But here in the bluer than blue part of Washington, hugging Puget Sound, I realize I am still in the minority. No matter—at least, for the first time in four years, I feel the relief of being in sync with the majority of people in the rest of the country. I hope for a return to sanity.

But….I was pretty sure one of my closest friends, who has not made a peep since before the election, was unhappy. Even though she has been disgusted with the Dems for years, I could sense her unhappiness from many miles away, on Whidbey Island. 

We were supposed to meet this Friday to celebrate her birthday, and I was guessing it was probably not going to happen, though I was game. But I was still going to be mum about the whole thing, because I was very sure she would not want to hear my opinion. And maybe is even incapable of hearing it.

When I heard whoever it was—Julia Roberts? I can’t remember—tell women to go along with their Trump-voting husbands, and then secretly vote for Kamala anyway, I thought, what kind of marriage is that? And what kind of terrible advice is that to give?!

But I also understood it, because that’s what I've been doing with my dear friend, who I love deeply, but who I know has no real respect for my differing opinion. I tried my best to keep our relationship going during Covid, but she dumped me and I was heartbroken. A year later she contacted me, said she realized I had been right, and could I ever forgive her? Of course I did, but I asked her to read Kennedy’s Fauci book first, which to her credit she did, and agreed with much of. She was Covid vaccine-injured and that caused her to question everything.

So we repaired our relationship and carried on. Until today, when she texted me, completely unasked, about what she called her deep grief and fear. After never bothering to get one previously (since she has never been out of the country), she has gotten a passport application and plans to mail it in a few days. She is mourning the country, she said, and no longer wants to live here; neither does anyone in her family. Where can they go, they’re asking. Maybe to a friend in Mexico. She’s grieving, she said. This country is no longer safe for her family she said, again. “So welcome to the brave new world of oligarchical anarchy,” she said. I have no idea what the fuck that is.

As usual, my friend feels free to share her anguish with me, because, like so many of our friends and family members, she cannot conceive that I might feel the exact opposite. And that’s a large part of how we got here: Hubris.

We’re so right, many of them have been saying for years now, and we have God on our side. How could any sane person see anything differently than how we see it? And if do you think differently, well, you're just plain wrong, and you’re probably an “ist,” - a racist, a sexist, a misogynist, and especially, our favorite word, a fascist. 

I know my friend is having an imaginary existential crisis, but as a counselor, I also know it’s all too real to her. There is nothing I can say, I suspect, that will convince her otherwise. 

I started to write back, saying I was sorry she felt that way, and sympathizing with her angst, because I felt the same way after Bush won the second time. I wanted to leave the country. Unlike many Americans, I could, because I have multiple citizenships. But I didn’t, because after I got over my anger and shock and disgust, I also understood that’s the nature of democracy; you win some and you lose some. It’s ok. Life will continue. 

But as my husband and I drove to Lowe’s for a 4x4 this afternoon, I suddenly had a big AHA! moment:

This is the same playbook that was used to frighten the bejesus out of people during Covid.

I realized that there doesn’t need to be another pandemic to keep people scared and controlled; any idea or boogeyman will do. In this case it’s Donald Trump. He’s coming for you and your children. He is evil incarnate. He will destroy the world. It’s hardly a surprise that some people are reacting irrationally, and with complete, utter hysteria.

Rather than explain to my friend that I am relieved that Trump won because I think some of the fabulous people he's surrounded himself with will do a fantastic job, if allowed, especially the person I wanted to vote for, RFK Jr.; or that Rogan’s interview humanized Trump for me; or that Trump’s stunts at McDonald’s and in the garbage truck were funny and brilliant, I have protected her from my opinions because I know she can’t take them.

I honestly want to say that the majority of us have spoken, and you just need to deal with it and move on, or even better, give the new administration a chance.

Or how about, why is it you can dish it out but you can’t take it?

Or, I have my own existential crisis, because I’m sure if I tell you how I really feel and think, our friendship will be broken again and you will divorce me for a second time, but frankly, I think falling out over politics is immensely stupid and we agree on so many more things than we do not, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

But I think for now the best thing I could say to my friend is what I’ve just written about the playbook, above, followed by: Don't be played again. But I have no confidence that it will be well received, and every sense that it will not.

At the end of her text my friend said she was too bruised to see anyone (self-lockdown), so our celebration of her birthday is postponed, indefinitely. Maybe forever. She eventually saw through the madness of Covid, but here we are and she’s being fooled again. Why? I have no idea. I wonder if this, too, is what you’re seeing?

Let us hope that we can have honest and kind conversations with people who are still so convinced we are wrong, and the world is ending for them.

All the best from the Puget Sound

---

We are connected in ways that are sometimes too tenuous and subtle to recognize, our friendships and our hurts and our sparks of insight, but also by big, bold entities that literally revolve around one another. Last Friday, I had the following experience:

I was driving away from the sunrise. This was no technicolor sunrise, but rather a cloud drama, all shifting and blowing past one another to reveal panes of pale blue, stormy depths, even god rays. Over the horizon the light rose, its source never quite visible. Just that thrumming glow.

Ascending the hill, a white-capped Salish Sea to my left, there was now a glow ahead and above me, pushing through the clouds. But the sun was still behind me. Nearly directly behind.

The road climbed and turned and I was face to face with the moon. Giant, yellow, and full.

It actually brought tears to my eyes. I didn’t expect it.

And then the moon disappeared again behind the hill as I drove on. There was nowhere to stop. Appeared again—this time with a wisp of cloud across just a sliver of it—and once again disappeared.

The moon, the source of light in front of me, was itself reflecting the sun, the source of light behind me.

---

And then that evening, out on the water with my dear husband, we saw the inverse. The sun was setting over water that it turned to liquid gold. Loons and gulls and murrelets and cormorants were silhouetted by it. The tide was coming in fast, but the sun was taking its time.

We turned to see the same hill on which I had been driving that morning, and watched the moon appear. Giant, yellow, and full.

We moved with the tide and the moon disappeared, then reappeared again.

The sun setting as the full moon rose.

The setting sun reflects gold in the waters of the Strait of San Juan de Fuca