It was the hottest evening of the year. So far. I rested my post-surgical, boot-encased foot on my husband’s leg as we sat with a group of like-minded, anxious Seattle progressives and listened to the ACLU’s state communications director answer questions.
“What should we do?” was what we wanted Doug Honig to tell us. Meaning: about Trump? During his presidency? What should we do? How can we help?
Honig’s advice, which I’m paraphrasing and which he delivered with more nuance, was essentially this: Try to stop obsessing about Trump. This isn’t about Trump, this is about the Republican plan to remake our country. The Republicans have deep pockets and many loyal foot soldiers and they are in this for the long game. And so we need to be, too.
What does that mean? It means supporting local, state and national politicians and candidates who stand for compassion, not cruelty. It means raising our voices in defense of the Affordable Care Act, immigrants’ rights, our national parks and monuments, clean air, clean water, and everything else we care about that is threatened not just by Trump’s vicious, bullying twitter feed but by his clever cabinet appointees and his allies on Capitol Hill, who love love love that he is providing constant, highly distracting cover while they pursue their draconian agenda.
Stay in, people, for the long game.
“There’s a part for you to play in the next great progressive comeback story,” Senator Al Franken writes in his new memoir, Al Franken: Giant of the Senate. “But only if you can keep from losing your mind or getting so discouraged that you quit before the comeback even begins.”
Politically, this summer is already about as un-pretty as my swollen foot on a 96-degree day in June. And as with my foot, there’s no going back.
“Do you ever just wish you hadn’t done it?” a friend asked me, as I crutched toward her. It was a remarkably intuitive remark, given that I have been wishing exactly that, frequently, as I face the reality that it’s going to be quite a while before I’m walking normally, or new-normally, after a surgery involving three incisions, one metal plate, two screws and six weeks of roller-carting. Sure I wish I hadn’t done it, because then I could be doing all the things I love to do in the summer: hop on a bike, hike up a mountain trail, jump in the lake. 
I could be doing all those wonderful things this summer, that is. But what about ten years from now? Twenty years from now? The point is: I didn’t have this surgery for me, right now, age 60. I did it for me at 61, 65, 70, 80, God willing. This foot-rebuilding project is a crazy (and temporarily crazy-making) vote of confidence in my own future. I’m in this for the long game.
And if what we care about is not just getting rid of Trump but ensuring a better, more humane world for our children and grandchildren, then we have to stay in for the long game. We have to work our political muscles for more hopeful summers in the future.
As my booted foot and I bumble about, it cheers me to think of the march through downtown Seattle back in January. Hundreds of thousands of strong feet, filling the streets of Seattle, Washington DC, cities and towns all over the country.
I look forward to marching again. Meanwhile, I’ll do what I can.
Friends in Seattle and South King County: I’ll be reading at the Renton Library at 7:00 pm on July 26th.
Quite a salute to medicine and technology. .. so far has served us well, although poorly distributed globally. I share admiration for ‘techno fideism’ but ultimately it is a trivial salve. The long game is getting fore-shortened by reality.
I prefer to face the need for civilized, ethical government – I thought we were getting close to that, now it seems we returned to 1939. Now kids need to know even more about the world. Where science is easy compared to understanding dangerous fools and why humans tolerate them so. Sorry kids, just watch your step and take care to retain and restore. Nurture resilience
Good too is the short game of keep your feet elevated and attend to your restless nesting comforts.
thanks for these posts.
Thanks, Ann, for this encouragement, as it is encouraging to remember the big long picture and not get splintered into chaotic fixation on the current president. I also hold the vision of complete expedient healing for your foot and you playing again!
Well said, Ann. And I’m so sorry to hear of your reconstructive summer! But I fully agree with your reasons for going for it. What we do, the decisions we make in life, is not just about “now” it’s for our future now. I commend you.