The predawn hours of November 9, 2016 were not the best for me. As had become my habit by that time, I was curled up on the loveseat in my study under a blanket, trying to get a little sleep. This night, however, I was also nursing a head damaged by too much red wine, as I tried to self-medicate myself out of the unbelievable news on the Drudge Report that the Republican nominee had won the election, and what had started as farce turned into looming tragedy. I flipped my iPhone between news outlets, hoping to find one that held out the chance for a different outcome, but the narrative was uniformly bad for our country that morning.
I fumbled for my laptop in the computer bag next to the chair, and started looking up how to emigrate from the U.S. and start a new life in Ireland. Surely they'd want the great-great- grandnephew of Alexander Campbell, martyr of the Molly Maguires. Not so fast, old man--Ireland takes a somewhat dim view of old Micks like me trying to reverse the great migration after the Famine, and the Irish bar is administered in . . . gulp . . . Irish.
Have you ever seen Irish on paper? Heard someone speak it? It sounds like the speaker is grooving on Bushmill's and amphetamines, and to the untrained ear (meaning mine) is pretty much gibberish. I got a C in Russian when I was 21, for Pete's sake. No chance my late-middle-aged brain could tackle that challenge now.
That morning I brushed the red wine veneer off my teeth, took a handful of aspirin, and left the house before 6 a.m. to drive to Pensacola to mediate a complicated land use case. I stopped along the way to buy water, then coffee, then water, and started gradually to reinflate.
When I arrived at the attorney's office, a very traditional, neo-Georgian space with paneled walls and prints of fox hunting parties foppishly galloping through the hedgerows, they put me in an empty conference room, lights off (thank God), where I went through my notes for this very complicated case and jotted down a few talking points for the opening. I hoped there would be no discussion of the evening's events.
My hopes were dashed within seconds of the first lawyer flipping on the lights and starting the parade into the room.
All ebullient. All feverishly conjecturing about all the great things that were about to happen in this country now that they were in charge.
I felt sick.
My hope at that point was that they'd all get mad at one another in the opening session, blow up the mediation, and I could drive home and take a nap. Instead, we ground this one out until 8:45 at night, nearly twelve hours later, when my host patted me on the back and told me I'd done a great job and he'd hire me again (he never has), then showed me out to my car for the two-and-a-half hour drive back to Panama City.
At the time I thought the Republican establishment would rein in this buffoon, and maybe some good things would happen if he surrounded himself with the right people. I didn't let myself even imagine the dystopia Trump and his followers would create in this country over the next four years.
And they did it in a hurry, sensing the tide was already turning even before Melania and Baron surveyed the White House and flew home to Manhattan for the duration. They lost the House in 2018. They lost the Presidency in 2020.
This morning, it seems, they've lost the Senate. Unlike four years ago, this time I went to bed sober, and woke up at 5 a.m. when Slane and Dean began their peristaltic chorus to let us know they needed to be put on the porch for a comfort break. I couldn't help myself, and grabbed my phone to open Drudge and see the latest runoff results. Frankly, I couldn't believe my eyes. Georgia, my beloved boyhood home, the state that trained me in my profession, had not only handed the White House to Biden, but now apparently the Senate to the Dems.
I thought about waking up P to tell her, but she had an early one this morning filling in at the hospital here in Perry while Corning remains in lockdown. Let her sleep.
When she did arise, I couldn't help myself and blurted it out--"The Dems won both seats!" Not exactly foreplay, but it did put her in a happy state of mind. I walked out to put on coffee and fry an egg so she wouldn't go to work hungry, then flipped on the TV morning news shows for the first time in years to listen to them confirm the results, over and over.
I thought of the Ron White comedy routine where he describes having to call his ex-wife's lawyer's office after she'd cleaned Ron out in court, and being told by the receptionist, "I'm sorry, Mr. White, but Mr. _______ died two months ago."
White then calls the office again, and asks for the lawyer. The receptionist sounds annoyed. "I told you, Mr. White, Mr. _______ is dead."
"I know, darlin'. I just like hearing you say it."
And yes, I have to admit, I wallowed in a little schadenfreude by watching Fox & Friends. Of course, I was disappointed--they weren't covering the election, having moved on to the planned MAGA riot today in DC, and their forlorn hope that Mike Pence will betray his oath and refuse to count ballots later.
These four years have been as politically miserable as anything I've experienced in my lifetime, and probably yours as well. Kindness effaced into the background, as did civility, thoughtful debate, humble openness to other views---in sum, the spirit of basic human decency deserted us for a time, flowing straight from the top of the ticket.
This morning dawns with hope, although I am not naive enough to believe the clouds will part and we'll suddenly become the country we thought we were before all this insanity started. But finally it feels like the line has broken, like the Western Front in November of 1918 when the Huns melted east into the Rhineland and the world knew, finally, it was the beginning of the end of a long nightmare. We at least get a shot at trying again, at doing better, at being better.
The twelve day of Christmas was yesterday. What a gift to end this holy season, and begin a new year as a nation.
Comments