ELECTION DAY

It's Election Day. Well, vote counting day, since people have been actually voting for weeks now and, if predictions prove correct, we may not know the result for days--or even weeks. But still, November 3rd is designated as the day we call Election Day. 

I choose to remain optimistic about the outcome. A victory for the man who has occupied our White House--and our Oval Office--for nearly four years now is unthinkable to anyone who has an ounce of human compassion, or anyone who simply values the truth and trusts the demonstrable facts of evidence and science. It is not merely America and its democracy that are at stake; it is the future of our vulnerable planet. 

My thoughts turned this morning in my meditation session to the ease with I myself can step back from responsibility. This past Sunday morning we went out on a morning walk, Ellie and I, along the Laguna Beach boardwalk and the Heisler Park cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. On our return, we came upon a handful of very loud, very aggressive Trump supporters camped out by the pedestrian crossing on Pacific Coast Highway. They were waving flags and shouting--mostly insults--at anyone who would listen.

I was shocked by their presence in normally ultra-liberal Laguna Beach, and by the number of honks--presumably supportive--they were getting from passing traffic. My mind turned, this morning, to ways in which I could, perhaps should have intervened to counteract views that were, to me, abhorrent, as well as the aggressive tactics. But I chose to avoid confrontation and, instead, to walk on by. (When I heard one of them shout about people who "hate America" and "hate the Constitution," I did turn around and shout back, mildly enough: "No one hates America! No one hates the Constitution!" and was rewarded with a shout accusing me of being naive.

So I sat there, two days later, asking myself whether I had been one of those proverbial "good Germans"--my apologies for the odious phrase that was nonetheless much debated in the years after the war--who chose to stand by in silence as their country and their values were subverted by what must have seemed, for a while, a petty, power-grabbing, slightly ridiculous would-be autocrat? Should I have engaged these hooligans? Should I have tried to expose the irrationality of their support for a man who has already wrought great damage on this country and the world?

It would, surely, have been a vain gesture on my part, and perhaps even a dangerous one. I would have persuaded no one, changed no minds. And yet this morning I felt that I had sacrificed some part of my integrity in walking past and making no real attempt to defend the values for which I claim to stand.

I trust that today America will make a start on returning to its senses. We cannot afford to slide further into the chaos already generated by this one man's narcissism and arrogance, and by his failure to address the pressing issues we face as a country and, frankly, as a human species. Either way, it will be a turning point. Let's hold to the faith that America will turn back to reality, and the courage to face it with respect for truth and mutual compassion.