Take a Deep Breath—And Prepare for the Election

This is the season of the Jewish calendar devoted to introspection and new beginnings.  It is a solemn, but also a joyful, time of year.  And it comes just as I feel like I’m struggling to keep my head above the torrent of bad news that just keeps coming at us, and gear up for the final push before next month’s elections.

I hardly need to recount the horrifying developments that have assaulted us since the beginning of Trump’s second term.  But just in recent weeks, it seems as though the pace of the assaults has accelerated.

The rollback of emissions guidelines for automobiles

The failure of the administration to take seriously the very real threats of AI (which AI executives have acknowledged, and they surely have no interest in raising concerns about their technology!)

The gutting of staff at the Centers for Disease Control, including those responsible for infectious disease tracking and response, under the Orwellian banner of “making America healthy again.”

The Supreme Court’s decision that the national database on eligible voters could be used by states

The ongoing deportation of undocumented immigrants to countries to which they have no connection and where they have a strong likelihood of being tortured

The accelerating pace of immigration detentions in facilities where conditions are horrific

The efforts to prosecute and defame dedicated public servants like Anthony Fauci and Jack Smith

And all that is apart from the very real possibility that the administration will find some way to disrupt the upcoming election or discredit the results if they lose

The list goes on.   To say that it is exhausting and demoralizing is a gross understatement.  And now we need to step up even more to work on election education and protection?

How do we endure all this and restore our strength for this final pre-election month?  The effort to save our democracy from these authoritarian attacks is overwhelming and anxiety-producing.  Just when we feel as if we have recovered from the latest assault, we wake up to discover that there is some new horror unfolding that we hadn’t anticipated.  We can’t catch our breath.  We need a strategy for maintaining our activist momentum and for gearing up without burning out.

Just as I’ve been struggling to navigate these perilous times, I read the Yom Kippur sermon by Rabbi Chloe Zelkha, a Reconstructionist rabbi who serves congregation Eitz Chayim in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  (Full disclosure:  Chloe was a student of mine a couple of decades ago at Carleton College when I taught there and we have remained friends ever since.)

You can read her sermon on her Substack, “Between Chaos and Light,” which is entitled “How to Survive a Flood.”  

I won’t attempt to rehearse the entire sermon here, but the question she’s addressing is the question all of us face in these trying times:  how do we survive a flood of assaults on our democracy (in addition to whatever “floods” we may be facing in our personal lives.)

I don’t think there’s a simple, pat answer to this question, but here are some of my thoughts, inspired by Rabbi Zelkha’s reflections.

1.  Stick together.  There is strength in numbers.  As important as it is to engage with people on the other side of the political spectrum, to really understand what motivates them, this is also a time to lean into solidarity with others engaged in this fight.  Each time I attend a “No Kings” rally or some other protest event I am reminded that there are many others, whose names I don’t even know, who share my values and commitments.  I invariably return home buoyed by the energy of being in a crowd of people willing to stand up and speak out.

2.  Pace yourself.  As the cliché goes, this is a marathon, not a sprint.  The fight to expand basic civil rights, promote human decency, and provide for those who are marginalized, is as old as our country.  We will not win this fight in a single election, as important as this upcoming election is.  I fully expect that my children and grandchildren will be engaged in this struggle long after my time here has ended.

3.  Pick your battles. Part of the challenge we face is that we feel overwhelmed, again and again.  We can’t fight back on all fronts simultaneously.  But we can choose something, anything, that feels urgent in the moment and act on that.  It feels like a drop in the bucket, but each drop contributes to the collective resistance we need to maintain.  Don’t fret about “not doing enough” or “not knowing what to do.”  There are more than enough ways to show up and push back.  We only need to find that thing that outrages us the most right now and address that.  Others will do the rest.  

This is a good place to remind readers of suggestions I made in my earlier post, “A Free and Fair Election” about ways to get involved in election defense work.  This next month is also the time when we all need to be getting out the vote, especially in those places where control of Congress will be determined.  There are literally too many venues for supporting this work to list; find an organization and a medium (canvassing, calling, texting, etc.) that works for you.  And please continue to support those non-profits that are fighting the legal battle to ensure our election is not disrupted or discounted.  This is the time for everyone to step up and do their part.

4.  Maintain hope. Progress is incremental.  There was a time when only white, male landowners were allowed to vote.  Someday there will be a time when health care will be recognized as a universal right, when our tax system will be more equitable, when we’ll replace the electoral college with popular elections of the president.  We are forever in the process of creating a “more perfect union,” and, as MLK said, “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  That is not an empirical statement, it’s an article of faith.  We need to maintain that faith, because it’s the only thing that makes progress possible.

5.  Find joy.  This is perhaps the hardest advice of all.  These assaults on our democratic way of life leave us feeling perennially embattled, on high alert, and our stress levels only continue to rise as we anticipate what it will take to restore a semblance of sanity to our country and the world.  Still, we need to take breaks—hug the people in our lives that we love, enjoy a good meal, take a walk in a beautiful place, listen to an inspiring piece of music.  This isn’t to shirk our responsibilities to the world; it is an essential way of re-energizing ourselves for the battles ahead.

There is nothing easy about living in these times.  But we need to maintain focus, maintain our sanity, maintain our perspective, and maintain our hope for the future, even if we don’t live to see it.  We will get through this—together—but only if we continue to replenish our inner resources.  For me, this is the message for this new year.

Now, with this perspective and hope in your heart, go out and do your part to ensure a democratic outcome in November!