In the new year
The turning of the year is an opportunity for reflection. This past year has held little joy. It has been a year of extraordinary cruelty and destruction. It closed with the election of Donald Trump and the new year will open with his inauguration. Collective, creative solutions to the accelerating crises we face seem far away. We know there will be more suffering in this coming year. We know that values we cherish are not only ridiculed but criminalized.
Across the country people are gathering to ask fundamental questions about how to respond to this reality. The urgency of the pain around us drives us to action. Trump is such an outsized figure, marked by such an outrageous combination of arrogance, ignorance, and viciousness, he offers a compelling target for our own fears and frustrations.
The hard truth is that Trump and the forces he represents are more than the culmination of right-wing strains that have been part of American public life since the founding of this country. Over the course of nearly 250 years, these forces have justified genocide of indigenous peoples, slavery, child labor, and the exploitation of peoples and land. The living earth has been subjugated for the profits and privileges of an ever-smaller group of people.
At our best, these forces have been challenged by the movements of people for dignity, justice, the end of wars, and the protection of life. Such movements have offered us glimpses of what we could be as a people, basing our lives on consciousness, compassion, and care.
The struggles between these forces have marked the evolution of our country and shaped the lives of all of us. In each generation the contradiction between our economic and technological overdevelopment and our political and social underdevelopment has expressed itself in ways that demanded resolution.
It is easy to think of these two sides of the contradiction as opposing forces, but the present is created by the complex interactions among all of us. Trump is as much a product of the evolution of those of us who believe in freedom as he is the product of those who believe in capitalist exploitation. He has captured the presidency not only because of what he and his supporters did, but because of what we did or didn’t do.
The interaction between the those who want order, control, and wealth and those who want justice, freedom and a land of compassion and life has resulted in this moment. It is clear what Trump and people have done. What is not so clear is the part the rest of us have played in this drama, what actions and inactions we are responsible for that enabled the rise of such crude and destructive forces.
The fundamental contradiction continues to shape us. How do we now create more socially responsible people? How do we increase our connections with one another? How do we create ways of living that respect life? These are questions that requiring looking not only at what Trump and his minions are doing, but at ourselves.
We have a long legacy of thinkers, activists, builders, artists and dreamers to help us look at these questions. And we have emerging leaders who are bringing forward a new political imagination rooted in concepts of care, respect, healing, and love.
In this season of reflection, let us recommit ourselves to the journey ahead, knowing that it is only by looking at hard truths and turning toward each other that we will find our way.