What Happened? What Next?

My blog took a long pause after my review of Hillary Clinton’s new book, “Hard Choices”. 

Fast forward three years. Another book. The autopsy of her failed election campaign. The question: What Happened?

Pundits, data jockeys, and campaign strategists will be years trying to sort that out. But while we dig and probe and investigate, we can declare one thing: the election exposed the repulsive 21st century American underbelly.

Hillary lost an election. We may lose the country and our future. 

The symptoms of a critically wounded society are rampant. We talk openly of the threat of authoritarianism and tyranny. We slip and slide through our days, skittering from one domestic or foreign disaster to another. We have lost our footing as individuals and as a citizenry. Our civic and planetary health are deteriorating, with a report today on what might prove to be the largest mass shooting in our modern history. We are all depressed and anxious, not just anecdotally but clinically, as physicians report an escalation of anxiety and depression in their patients. 

These may be the early days of a failed presidency and possibly a failed federal government. Roosevelt was wrong. We have plenty to fear: tyrannical governance, financial fragility, the sixth extinction, climate catastrophe, and nuclear war, among them.  

This blog has been my platform for cataloguing, understanding, and tackling the challenges to health and well-being in the 21st century. In the last three years, I and others have been working towards overcoming many of those challenges. We thought we’d made progress. With the election of Donald J. Trump, nearly all the accomplishments of the last 45 years have been systematically diminished or dismantled. What remains is under constant attack by dark forces. Sound dramatic? It feels worse. 

How to cope? What to do? The Democrats are searching their souls, resisting when they can. The potential for even small victories or just standing in place is uncertain. Much of what we’re doing to keep the body politic intact is being played out on social media. But Facebook and Twitter prompt fleeting, reactive responses to the fake and the real. Bombarded with images and stories of our great unraveling, nothing changes. We organize online. We protest. We call, fax and write letters. Sometimes we hit the streets. But we have no enduring strategy for change. We shout "no". But then what?   

Some days I’m not sure what I believe any longer, what principles should guide my action, how to focus or find leverage to catalyze responsible change. So I’m taking my seat at the keyboard again, facing the demons within and without. I hope you’ll join in. Maybe we can find clarity together. For to make a difference, as the world seems to be falling apart, we need to understand what happened and then muster the will to make hard choices. It's long past time to change … for the health of it.