I’ve been struck lately, as I know some of you have, by the number of strangers as well as friends who’ve come up to me to express so much anxiety, even fear, about the results of the recent election. Every news story increases their apprehension, so my first advice is to stop taking in so much news.
We have been through hard times, politically, often before, although many are probably too young to have witnessed Vietnam or the McCarthy period, when it also seemed as though Democracy was at stake.
Since we are being intimidated by bullying, I think it’s useful to remember that this is exactly the technique Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin used to great effect in the 1950’s. He began with a rabble-rousing speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, when he claimed, with no evidence, that the U.S. State Department employed more than two hundred Communists. An uproar followed, and while it went on, McCarthy continued to spew his groundless accusations, finally leading Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith and six of her Republican colleagues to release a “Declaration of Conscience” censoring Senator McCarthy’s behavior as “contrary to senatorial traditions.” His downfall had begun.
Note that he was censured first by his Republican colleagues—and the assault was led by a woman. Now that we have more women in Congress, we can expect more principled behavior, including pushback against presidential extremism—and some of these women, and even a few men, will be Republicans.
News stories, always bent on drama, do not reveal much about moderate representatives from both parties who will begin at some point to react as Senator Chase did against the bullying that will be the hallmark of the new regime.
Beyond that, as I told a beautiful stranger who approached me on Saturday with her fears, “I believe in us.”
“Us” for me means the group of women, known and unknown, here and everywhere, who when called on step up, whether it is the women (and men) who run the homeless shelters here or the woman (and her husband) who became friends after I (very slightly) side-swiped their car. They are new here, and decided not to make a police report, inform their insurance and so forth for a very slight mark which they washed off.
I recommend all kinds of forgiveness and singing every day as ways to chase fear. I am fortunate to be able to sing with the people who crowd my church pews and the extremely talented choir, but this is probably not a possibility for most of you—although you may perhaps consider it. Churches and synagogues are welcoming places, even to those who don’t, in the conventional meaning, believe.
Portrait of Lilian Wyckoff Johnson. Wikipedia.
The anthem has a long history, beginning in Gospel music with “I’ll Overcome Some Day,” changed by one of its singers to “We Shall Overcome.” It was sung by fighters for Civil Rights in the South even while they were being beaten by police, knocked down by fire hoses and attacked by police dogs.
In its own way, the song led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by Congress, ending legal segregation. We are still fighting this battle, but the first great victory came in 1964, almost a hundred years after slavery ended.
It will not take us a hundred years to overcome all the intended and unintended consequences of the next presidency. In this situation as in all situations, fear is never useful or productive, tending to lead to feelings of helplessness and paralysis. So sing out, and conquer it!
“We shall overcome some day some day…”
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