Tens of millions of people around the world remember to this date, where they were and what they were doing when the twin towers fell. As they do when Mr. Barack Obama, a black man, became the most powerful man in the world. Strangers rejoiced on the streets of little towns around the world. Not because they thought that their lives would be suddenly better, or that the complex political and economic systems that controlled their lives would suddenly be fairer or kinder, but because in his win the disenfranchised, around the world, saw a glimmer of hope. Every so often, humanity redeems itself. And it had done so then.
And once again, millions will remember this election night for a long long time to come. Thousands wept next morning, for themselves and for the their children, for the loss of hope. Whether Mr. Trump really believes in all he said is almost immaterial. He, and his party, have now made it okay to say those things. It is okay to be uncivil, to be unkind, to be insular and intolerant. It is okay to be selfish, okay to be deceitful, okay to lie, okay to cheat, okay to oppress, okay to divide, and okay to hate. To hate those different from us, to disrespect women, to despise the LGBT community and to mock the disabled. It is okay to be selfish. It is okay to not sacrifice. It is okay to trample and okay to destroy. The world is watching in horror as America becomes everything it had been accused of.
Paul Ryan’s dream for a unified government has come true. The next three Supreme Court appointees will seal the deal. This monolithic concentration of power is almost more worrisome than the platform on which the President-elect contested and won. The violence that such unbridled unchecked power will unleash is gut wrenching. There may not be a wall, and there may be no ban. But there will be misery – lots of it – foisted upon the most vulnerable. Time will tell whether this was a triumph of the disenfranchised or the bigoted or the misogynistic or them all. But one thing is certain – the oligarchs will run amok. The exploitative systems that make life a daily grind for millions are only likely to get worse. There is no reason to think otherwise. Whenever humans lose all checks and balances, we have shown an uncanny ability to tap into our darkest, most violent selves. We rapidly descend into an abyss. This week, it seems, we have only just jumped off the ledge.
It is okay to be selfish. It is okay to not sacrifice. It is okay to trample and okay to destroy. The world is watching in horror as America becomes everything it had been accused of.
America may see the rolling back of rights, the reversal of freedoms and the restriction of expression. And every assault will make public discourse more acrimonious and more frightful. But these insults are likely to be mere distractions from the ominous and insidious task underfoot – the extraction of labour, the siphoning of wealth and the pooling of resources to serve the few. Citizens United will be the norm for our generation, Roe v Wade may not. The government may not have a greater say in the personal lives of citizens – but it will ensure that corporations will. The vast majority will have fewer resources – they will not have better schools, they will not have better healthcare, they will not longer parental leave, they will not have a bigger retirement fund. They will not have a better future. And those at the fringe will have no chance whatsoever. It is this disenfranchisement that we should be petrified of. What does America offer if it does not offer everyone a fighting chance? How is America different if your birth determines your fate? What is America if not the safest melting pot? Where should the tired, the poor and the huddled masses go if not to America’s shores? Should that brazen Colossus not stand forever?
The Koch Brothers Academy will continue their fear mongering and obfuscation, and unless those committed to a more perfect union are strategic in their response, all will be lost. Tens of thousands cast empty ballots. How did they reach a point of such self-destructive self-righteousness that this misguided act of supposed civil disobedience now risks them losing the nation? To dismiss the “uneducated white middle” as ignorant is patronizing. Those that voted for Mr. Trump are adults, and are responsible for the choices they made. Those that allowed them to be misguided, ill-informed, and manipulated, ie – the Republican establishment – should be held accountable.
If each of the 59 million people who voted for Hillary Clinton dedicated herself (or himself) to convincing one “other” — only one — in the next four years that the nation is stronger together, then America may have a chance to be great again. But this seemingly simple task requires strategic targeted planning. The isolated communities of the coasts will have to travel the nation, not fly over it, to get on a bus, and hitchhike across the country, to see what ails America’s heartland. And this means everyone – women, black, brown, gay, lesbian, the poor, the disabled, the Muslims and Jews — have to show those that cower their folly. The future of this grand experiment, the final frontier, is in their hands. They must reclaim America from the oligarchs and their unwitting foot soldiers. They must not let their guard down, they must hold every offie bearer accountable. They must organize and struggle, demand and agitate, march and protest. They must lift a lamp to the golden door again, lest this great nation plunges into long years of darkness.
(The author is an ER physician in New York City, and fellow at Harvard’s FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. An immigrant, his first day of school in the United States was on September 11, 2001)