What Biden’s election victory made me realize about the Trump era, and why we must continue our struggle
Trump’s presidency contributed to a culture of cynicism and apathy. But for writers, educators, and other cultural workers the struggle isn’t over.
When I dared to imagine November in the past couple of months, all I could see was a colorless wasteland, devoid of content or feeling. I hoped, of course, that Biden would win, but didn’t believe that the victory of this establishment candidate would make much of a difference in my everyday life. A winter lockdown loomed ominously (as it still does) and the best-case scenario was simply one in which a sane government would do its best to protect the lives of its citizens — instead of knowingly putting them in danger.
But as the vote count slowly tipped toward a possible Biden victory, my mood and outlook on the future began to shift. Very tentatively, I began to imagine personal and professional paths that I’d ruled out, and some long-abandoned projects once again seemed viable.
What was happening? Was this a mirage, a momentary euphoria that would fade once life settles into its familiar grooves, or does the election herald a more significant change despite the new lackluster head of state?
A little more than a year ago, I wrote about how isolating and demoralizing the Trump presidency was. Working long hours as an adjunct professor, I could do little to protest, or even respond to Trump’s ceaseless barrage of bigoted Tweets and destructive policies. I continued to teach material that was meant to help students see the world differently, and wrote when I could, but most days I felt defeated and powerless.
When Covid hit, my sense of isolation increased, and powerlessness and frustration slowly turned into apathy. If before I wanted to take action but couldn’t, now it seemed that there was simply nothing to be done. It seemed that the small projects I could undertake would never make a difference.
When I came across a passage in Primo Levi’s autobiographical novel, The Periodic Table, about the insidious effects of Fascism, I was astonished to see how accurately it described my experiences:
[W]e were al writing poetry…Writing sad, crepuscular poems, and not all that beautiful, while the world was in flames, did not seem strange or shameful to us. We proclaimed ourselves enemies of Fascism, but actually Fascism had had its effect on us, as on almost all Italians, alienating us and making us superficial, passive, and cynical.
No, I don’t want to equate Trump’s rule with Mussolini’s. Despite Trump’s tyrannical character and appalling policies, America, for the most part, retained its democratic laws and institutions. It would also be inaccurate to claim that all Americans became “superficial, passive, and cynical,” but many of us did.
The reasons for this go beyond Trump’s presidency. As I plan to discuss in a later post, 21st century American culture, with its emphasis on winner-takes-all success, had already marginalized the vast majority of writers, educators, and others who want to make a difference. It offered little support or recognition for the kind of work that makes democracies thrive: for instance, public higher education, or the kind of critical writing that keeps corruption and tyranny in check.
When Trump took power, he pushed many of us over the edge, if not materially then spiritually and psychologically. Even though the 45th president did not become a tyrant, but he instituted a tyrannical culture that worked along with neoliberal capitalism to hinder genuine creative thought and action.
In the U.S., writing of any type is already tied to market value and ‘timeliness.’ (Yes, even poetry, and academic scholarship are judged by how well they sell.) Trump’s uncanny ability to manipulate the news cycle further narrowed the scope of what we could write about AND reach an audience. In the last four years, I often spent several days working on an article, only to be told that it was no longer timely because Trump has tweeted something even more egregious.
By the end of 2018, I felt thoroughly discouraged as well as emotionally drained by the violence and callousness of the cascading events. Like Primo Levi and his friends in the early 1940s, I wanted to turn inward, succumbing to the superficiality, cynicism, and passivity that came to dominate our culture.
As I saw Biden’s numbers rise in the last few days, I felt that cynicism and passivity lift. I became less preoccupied with my individual fate during a likely winter lockdown and began thinking of deeper writing projects that would take me beyond the current year. I could see myself interacting congenially with other scholars and writers — a situation I’d found hard to imagine in the preceding months.
I hope that others, especially those who hold power in the cultural world, will come to similar conclusion about the effects of Trump’s presidency on our culture, seeing also the other causes that made literature, education, and journalism vulnerable to such depletion. However, despite my newfound optimism, I doubt that the privileged few will have a change of heart. What’s more likely is that those of us on the margins will have to continue the struggle for true democracy.
If Trump’s presidency has taught us anything of value, it is to recognize tyranny in our age. Even if it doesn’t take the form of totalitarian rule, it disseminates an authoritarian culture of cynicism, superficiality and fear that enslaves hearts and minds. With Trump out of the limelight, this culture may loosen its hold, but it won’t go away.
We must remain vigilant against these tendencies — or, better yet, create an alternative culture that is rich, humane and vital, making it harder for tyrannies of the soul to take root.
