Hunkering Down

And Speaking From my Racing Heart

Photo credit: Sheryl Gentry.

This week, my band (Local Honey) will be performing at two events: an ice cream social, sponsored by the local church and hosted on the lawn outside our town library, and an Independence Day parade. Flags will be waving, and the whole community will gather in a wholesome display of patriotism and pride.

But I don’t feel proud or patriotic this year. I’m terrified. I’ve got the worst case of the Sunday night blues in history - after a four year political vacation, during which we should have been sandbagging the foundations of our democracy against fascism’s inevitable flood, we are pathetically underprepared. Our leader seems to be falling apart before our eyes, our institutions buckling under the rot that began with the previous administration’s hijacking of the courts.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have immunity from crimes they commit while performing their official duties. With one pen stroke, they tipped the delicate balance of power that has kept the United States of America a flawed but functional democracy for 247 years.

Please read this analysis by the brilliant Heather Cox Richardson. I’m going to restack it, as well. I would write in more detail about what the Supreme Court ruling means, but I would only be regurgitating what she said, and less eloquently.

When I think about the four years we had to prosecute Trxmp for his crimes, the opportunities Democrats had to expand the Supreme Court, the chance we had to plan a graceful transition from a noble and self-sacrificing one term President (Biden) to a vital, younger successor (I’d be happy with any of them), I could weep. How could our side possibly be so weak that we can’t outperform a convicted felon, a rapist, an insurrectionist, a pathological liar, and a thief?

I have a family member who works in the federal government and fears that she will be compelled to take a loyalty pledge on the day Trxmp takes office. This isn’t paranoia on her part - Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for Trxmp’s second administration, spells it out. Another friend is exhorting her friends to renew their passports, in case they have to flee the country. Her fears are legitimate, too. As the granddaughter of a Holocaust victim, terror in the face of tyranny is her tragic birthright.

Eight years ago, in the nightmare months after Trxmp’s election, my Facebook feed (and my mind) blew up with escape fantasies: We were all going to move abroad. Or California would secede. At the very least we would change the rules, so that a candidate could never again lose the popular vote but win the Presidency, and that a voter in North Dakota wouldn’t have 50 times the voting power of a Californian. But almost none of us moved, and the fifty states hung together (though without much love for each other, it seems), and our leaders yet again put precedent and norms above survival, only to see those norms obliterated by our enemies.

This time, I have a much more gimlet eyed view of the future. I know I’m far too comfortable and connected to my community to go anywhere, and I don’t expect the population of California to revolt. I look at Europe’s hard swing to the right and wonder if it’s even possible to pick someplace better. Though I’m as solipsistic as the next girl, realistically, I know I’m too small to be a likely target of Republican retribution. Unless he gets ahold of Mao’s playbook and sends us all to reeducation camps, I’m probably going to weather whatever comes without much personal hardship, except the heartbreak of seeing the my friends and neighbors persecuted for their race, immigration status, sexuality, or politics. If he wins, my life will be mostly the same but also so much worse, and there’s no geographic cure or Hail Mary that’s going to prevent it.

The only thing that can stop our democratic death spiral is keeping Trxmp out of office, so that’s what we have to do. I would be willing to vote for Biden again, even if he’s too sick to perform his duties, just to keep Trxmp out. But I would far rather vote for a candidate who can unite us and infuse the nation with energy and optimism. Either way, I’m donating money and time to Democratic campaigns up and down the ticket. I just hope that whoever earns the presidency brings a roll of duct tape with her to patch things up.

And in a couple of days, I will put on my red, white and blue, climb onto the back of a truck, and sing my guts out for our democracy. I’ll throw lollipops to the kids and wave to my friends in the crowd. Not because I’m feeling proud or patriotic, but because this is my home, and it’s worth showing up for.