What now?
TL;DR: I’m not really sure.
This is an unusual piece I’m writing, but these are unusual times we live in, after all. I’m not a pundit, a pro journalist, politician nor anything like that. I’m just a guy. A guy who works retail and likes to write about anime and movies to help cope with everything around me.
I know, I know. This is a blog for that anime and film talk. “Why are you suddenly writing about politics when you haven’t updated this blog in years? Get back to anime!”
Believe me, I’d love to. But I have a lot on my mind (I’m actually sacrificing my daily media intake time to make this), and this is about the only platform I have to express my ideas in longform. So please bear with me for this or ignore it and I promise the next thing you see here will be anime related (I actually have a ton of anime stories I’m working on little by little).
I was anxious all Election Day. I just couldn’t escape those dark thoughts. Even with 2020 in the rearview mirror, I still worried. “What if he wins? He’s always been underestimated in polling.” The 2016 trauma never went away.
Now’s the time to answer that “what if” and to tell you the truth, I don’t really know. I needed to have an answer and I just don’t have one. I’m exhausted. I spent 4 years during the Trump (now retroactively the “Trump I years”) being an advocate. I woke up every morning angry about some new thing he did or said. I was in a rough spot mentally and physically. Every day I read the news as the day’s damage report. “Just how much worse is it going to get?”
In my observation, I think a lot of people have memory holed the initial Trump years. From day one he was embroiled in controversy. In 2017 it took him three attempts to condemn white nationalism. He did numerous other things like ban transgender people from the military, appoint conservative justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, shut down the government for a record time to get border wall money, separated families at that border, pressured Ukraine to find dirt on Joe Biden, and that was all before his terrible crisis management of COVID-19 and the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by police officers.
But more than that, to be honest, I hated what he stood for. Trump called Haiti and African nations “shithole countries,” he mocked a disabled reporter, he has made numerous comments about women including but not limited to the Access Hollywood tape, what he said about Rosie O’Donnell, and what he said about his own daughter Ivanka. And at his Madison Square Garden Rally he had a comedian call Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage.
This doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. So many comments about so many marginalized groups of people. It’s easy to ignore the angry shoutmen on YouTube and grifters profiting off calling new media “woke,” but what really gets me down is that these people are validated by the president of the United States. You know, the elected one. It hurts to know that these people love to shout, and be mean, and the response is “actually maybe they’re right.” It’s depressing.
But to my disgust, no one seemed to care. It wasn’t a dealbreaker for most people. He still won in 2016 and he’s won again now. What message does that send to people? You can make fun of others and get away with it? I hated (and still do) that people idolize this man. For his supporters, the cruelty is the point. It’s why they like him so much. Trump represents America with no filter. He “sticks it to the man.” He “tells it like it is” (which is to say he lies and mocks others he considers beneath him and people think that’s cool). It’s embarrassing. Now we’re back to that, so what now? I’m a man on the spectrum. What if Trump makes some kind of remark about people with autism? Will his supporters cheer? What do I tell my sister, who is married to a woman, when the new White House inevitably rescinds the support the previous administration gave to people like her? Will that be the new normal? That’s the core of why I hate this man and his movement so much. He empowers bullies.
I like to think I devote myself to kindness and compassion. If I disagree with someone, or even hate them, I never reach for the kind of low hanging fruit he goes for. There’s enough meanness in the world already. I want to try and be good to others to help offset that. And he, and his supporters, they’re mean. There aren’t many other flattering descriptions for it. They are rude, callous and hurtful, and they enjoy it. I shudder to think of the kind of message this sends to the people here and abroad when we reward a man like that with the presidency.
In 2020 I got a brief respite. We had 4 years of “normalcy.” True, Trump tried to overturn the results, but that’s water under the bridge as far as most voters are concerned. He was banned from Twitter (now X) and Facebook, and people moved on. I was happy to be like that.
This isn’t about policy to me. It’s true I agree with most of Biden’s ideas but more than anything I was ecstatic to have a normal old man in the White House. No more constant anger driving me to be irritated every morning. I felt my mental health improve and my relationships got better.
But then Trump announced he was running again. I was certain we’d kick him to the curb for good. The thought alone sent me to Cloud 9. “We could finally be done with the Trump era after a decade of dealing with him in politics. Surely the insurrection stuff would be a dealbreaker. I mean he lost in 2020 and losers tend not to win again.” I was ready to be over and done with it. With him.
But Biden was deeply unpopular. He is ancient and a number of his policy positions caused most people to turn against him. I thought we were done for again until he handed the reigns to Kalama. I felt hope again. But then the race tightened to my shock and disbelief. I’m still unsure why so many people are attracted to Trump. Is it all Biden resentment? Is it charisma? Do voters just have no idea how any of Trump’s policies will play out? Did they forget his first term? He lost against a man. Is it just sexism?
I don’t know. That’s for all the pundits to decide and analysts to parse. For me, there’s no crying over spilled milk. Spilled water cannot be returned to its cup. We have to ask ourselves again just as we did in 2016; “what now?”
I don’t know that either. What I can tell you is what I plan to do, and that’s continue to be kind, and fight unkindness when I see it. I will resist however I can and be there for the people who need me. We need to be there for each other now more than ever.
Trump has a lot of stuff on Agenda 47, widely known as Project 2025. It’s scary. It feels like a storm is brewing and we have two months to prepare. I’m not here to coddle you or get you on hopium. I’m not going to tell you it’s all right or it’s going to be fine. There will be loss, grief, more anger, more anxiety, more irritation. There may be more violence (from everyone). Maybe it is right to hit the bully back sometimes to assert yourself. To make sure they don’t bother you. But it’s also important not to lose ourselves. We need to be kind to one another. The winning message of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is Waymond Wang’s plea to be kind in this chaotic world. Depression, anxiety, fear and even hatred are all understandable emotions, and we’ll be seeing a lot of them for the next few years at least.
I’m not here to tell you to organize, or resist, or get ready for anything. I don’t want this to be a warning. I want it to be affirmation.
What I am here for is you. To be there when you need me. To be kind in an unkind world. To tie this to anime a bit, if you haven’t seen “Vinland Saga” or read the original manga by Makoto Yukimura, I highly recommend it. Perhaps more than any other story of fascist businessmen villains, it is the journey of Thorfinn that is more relevant to today’s world more than ever. His quest for peace in a violent world ruled by the Vikings is filled with hardship and loss and he finds out what it means to be a pacifist in such a cruel world.
It’s certainly inspired me, and if anything it gives me hope too. I’m not alone in my thoughts, and you aren’t either. No matter what may come, let’s brace the storm together.
