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Are you as confused as I am about how to comprehend and respond to the current political moment?<\/strong> Many people seem certain, far more certain than I, but what I notice is that they are certain of opposite things. Indeed, the mood of antagonism and polarization that currently saturates the United States lends itself to a sort of game (not a game): two kinds of people.<\/p>\n Out there in the big territory of the nation, of course, one kind is exultant at the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, while the other kind is angry, downhearted, and confused.<\/p>\n Within the latter category\u2014where I am living these days\u2014there are also two kinds of people<\/strong>. My husband (and approximately half of everyone I know) has been avoiding the news except when I deliver it personally in small toxic doses, such as yesterday\u2019s announcement that special prosecutor Jack Smith is dropping the documents case against Trump<\/a>, leaving no more consolation than a vague sense that it might be picked up again once Trump leaves office. The idea for this kind of people is to distract oneself from the unbearable until some unnamed day when it can be borne. Meanwhile, the other half is devouring headlines, podcasts, blogs, posts, and every other form of information and commentary, evidently in the hope of understanding what at first seemed unfathomable, a future of kakistocracy. (Look it up if you want to: it means rule by the worst people, an apt term.)<\/p>\n Maybe there are three kinds of people because when it comes to that particular binary, I am in the middle<\/strong>, reading and listening to what feels essential and skipping a lot of the rest. I\u2019m especially interested in what knowledgeable people have to say about the ways in which recent and soon-to-come developments in the United States follow the patterns set by the rise of authoritarianism abroad. Timothy Snyder<\/a> has a lot to say on the subject, also Ruth Ben-Ghiat<\/a>. I found this podcast with Anne Applebaum<\/a> instructive. Among the punderati, opinion is divided between \u201cdon\u2019t be alarmist, he\u2019ll never be able to do all that he says\u201d and \u201cbe very afraid.\u201d This was especially striking in a conversation on Monday along these lines among four New York Times<\/em> columnists<\/a>. M. Gessen, who has actually lived through authoritarianism, sounds the most realistic to me. <\/p>\n Out in progressive activism land, one kind of people has been generating strategy and tactical proposals nonstop, feeling there is no time to waste in planning how to stanch the flow of blood from the body politic under Trump. The others are counseling a pause for reflection or at least the restoration of presence or composure or whatever anchors us so that planning can proceed from something more solid than panic. <\/p>\n Certain themes are threaded through all the proposals I\u2019ve heard<\/strong>: prioritize grassroots organizing, bringing people into relationship in real time and space to counter the impact of social media and other propaganda that has created an atmosphere of pervasive distrust antithetical to building together. Pay attention to the issues that concern working people and respond in ways they find meaningful (remember not to say the stock market is healthy and inflation is down, so they must be imagining it). Engage people where they live rather than, for instance, pouring billions into broadcast TV advertising. Don\u2019t write off the majority of potential voters based on a calculus that says only the swing states count. <\/p>\n That all sounds sensible, but I continue to wonder how much things can change if the system stays broken<\/strong>. The amount of money spent on endless campaign advertising is stomach-turning. More than half the members of Congress are millionaires. I understand that people can transcend their personal economic circumstances to be fair-minded and compassionate. The thing is, the current system chiefly grants that opportunity to the wealthy. It would be nice, I think, to elect some working-class Senators and Representatives and give them the chance to show fairness and compassion to the haves while they provide a voice for the have-nots. <\/p>\n One bright light is House Resolution 1573, \u201cEstablishing the Select Committee on Electoral Reform<\/a>\u201d to look into many types of electoral reform such a proportional representation and ranked-choice voting to make Congress more functional and representative. These are some of the ideas I mentioned in my post-election blog<\/a>. We\u2019ll see if this excellent proposal by Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp of Oregon and Rep. Jared Golden of Maine is allowed to come to a vote. <\/p>\n Dip down into the patchwork of issues that mobilize people these days<\/strong> and you\u2019ll find that one kind of people\u2014some 6,000 writers and other literary workers\u2014is promoting a cultural boycott of Israel on the grounds that Israeli cultural institutions normalize injustice and engaging with them harms Palestinians. Another kind asks how it helps Palestinians (for example, the 20 percent of Israeli citizens sharing that heritage) to deny them or their neighbors access to the world\u2019s cultures. The writer Arash Azizi has a great essay on the subject<\/a>, anchored by his description of the difficulty he endured as a child in Iran who was punished for government\u2019s misdeeds by a boycott greatly limiting access to the books he craved. <\/p>\n I\u2019m guessing I won\u2019t be this confused forever<\/strong>. I just need to overcome a sort of barrier or obstacle in my head that hasn\u2019t yet accepted a truth I don\u2019t want to be true: that I can see why aspects of the populist message Trump blasted out were effective with voters who needed a place to put their anger and resentment. I just can\u2019t grok why they believed that message of compassion for the misused and overlooked, for those who can\u2019t make ends meet under current conditions, coming from someone whose record of lying, cheating, and self-dealing is so massive and easy to find. One kind of people offers me a lot of explanations, most of which have some credibility but perhaps not the ironclad explanatory power their advocates claim. The other kind says that when the final tally of votes comes out, it will reveal that Trump\u2019s vaunted mandate amounts to one of the smallest popular vote margins in electoral history, spun into victory by his campaign\u2019s shrewd use of the egregious Electoral College system, so it wasn\u2019t such a big deal after all.<\/p>\n Let me know when you have it all figured out, please!<\/p>\n Boz Skaggs, \u201cAsk Me Bout\u2019 Nothin\u2019 But The Blues<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n