We're Not Going Back—Or, Are We?
The 107 "Wasted" Days of The Harris-Walz Campaign
We’re not going back! We’re not going back!
Those words, defiantly but joyfully shouted by tens of thousands at a North Carolina rally back in October still resound in my memory, echoing in my head, and sending pinpricks into my heart.
Reliving the jubilation of that day, it’s hard to fathom the suddenness of the ending that followed.
This isn’t just a political loss, as devastating as that has been to come to grips with.
It is about so much more than a transfer of power and a Congressional renovation and the legislative ripples that will result.
This is about about one hundred and seven hopeful days, and the fact that there could have been so many more. It is about grieving the what-might-have-beens and the what-never-will-be’s.
I was talking with a dear friend last week and she said to me, “The last one hundred and seven days gave me something that I’d given up on: they gave me hope. Instead of spending the past three months mentally and practically preparing myself for the horrible things that I’d previously resigned myself to, I ended up getting fooled into believing again. That’s what hurts the most.”
She felt she’d gotten distracted by months of hope, only to have it all snatched away in a matter of hours. There’s an emotional whiplash to it all that many of us are living with right now.
And that’s probably the heart of this grieving.
Over one hundred and seven days, many of us went from a place of certain dread and resignation, to the prospect of possibility; and almost reluctantly to an expectation of victory, to anticipatory joy, to preemptive elation—and now we feel like that’s all been squandered time. It feels like a waste.
But I don’t believe the last one hundred and seven days have been wasted at all. I believe they were reminding us just what the hell we live for, and because that is the place we begin. That is the spot from where we start today: they why of our lives.
Recently, I went to an old friend for advice on all of this stuckness that I and many of us feel: I went to me on Election Day.
I gotta admit, I’m a little jealous of that guy. The me of November 5th was a lot more bouyant and rested than I am today. That guy looked a year younger than I do just a few weeks later. He wrote these words on election day and shared them with the world just a few hours before the polls closed. He said:
Today, I won't speculate on what will happen over the next few days, I'll simply feel the gratitude of what I've witnessed over the last one hundred and seven days: the coming together of so many disparate groups of people, the courage of brave human beings stepping into the fray and declaring who they are, the massive embracing of a message constructed on joy and love for neighbor.
I'll remember people crossing lines of political tribalism and religious boundaries to create a greater community for the common good.
I’ll give thanks for seeing the very best of what humanity can do when it is aligned for a purpose that transcends all the superficial demarcations and delineations we usually imagine are important.
I hope we get to have that reflected in the results of the election, that the votes of the people certify that we are collectively waking up to what is possible if we aspire to our better angels and not our demon fears.
But I know that either way, I have seen America over the past three months, the kind of America I know we could be, the America that is worthy of its initial declarations and its soaring anthems.
I have seen a movement of hope burning away the old vitriol.
I have seen young people finding their voices and sensing their agency.
I have seen men dismantling Patriarchy and rallying around a strong woman.
I have seen women focusing their righteous rage into a fierce wave of unprecedented power.
I have seen America leaning toward a better version of itself.
Right now, that is what sustains and steadies me.
Over the coming days we'll carry one another and hopefully soon celebrate together, but for now, I'll rejoice in what I've already seen and felt and experienced over the last one hundred and seven days.
It's been glorious, unthinkable, miraculous.”
So, was that guy wrong?
Was that guy an idiot who wasted one hundred and seven days throwing himself into a movement of unity and kindness, when he could have been preemptively grieving or emotionally preparing or looking for a visa to Costa Rica?
Was that guy foolish for dancing with his family, surrounded by thousands of diverse human beings in a rally where optimism and joy were palpable?
Was that guy naïve for knocking on hundreds of doors and talking with strangers about the kind of nation we seemed ready to build together?
Was that guy stupid for hugging an elderly woman of color in the grocery store checkout line, who thanked him for wearing a Kamala t-shirt, who said she thinks good things are coming?
I don’t believe he was any of those things—and I don’t believe any of you were for daring to believe all that you believed and worked for and dreamed about, and whatever you still believe.
The truth is, no act of love is ever wasted. You gave of yourself and you gave your time and your money, and you gave a damn—and weren’t wrong about any of that.
You may have been wrong about millions of people around you, and you may have been wrong about this nation’s collective readiness to embrace a woman of color as its leader, and you may have been wrong about the speed at which change is coming here—but you were not wrong for hoping and fighting then, or for grieving now.
The right and good things are still the right and good things even when they are not popular or in the winning column.
So, are you still someone who wants to leverage their life for the right and good things?
I believe you are.
I believe I am.
For one hundred and seven days we confidently declared that we’re not going back.
Let’s refuse to now.
I love this!!! And just what I needed as I still feel deeply about all of this. We are and were on the right side of this!!! And we all just have to coexist with so many who did not or chose not to be kind and think of our fellow citizens!!! Thank you so very much!!!
I recently read a long article about the German Protestant "Confessing Church" during the 1930s and 1940s. The Confessing Church was a movement within German Protestantism that arose in opposition to the Nazi-government sponsored effort to unify all the German Protestant churches into a single pro-Nazi German Evangelical Church.
For German Christians in the 1930s, race was the fundamental principle of human life, and they interpreted and effected that notion in religious terms. German Christianity emphasized the distinction between the visible and invisible church. For these German Christians, the church on earth was not the fellowship of the holy spirit described in the New Testament but a contrast to it, a vehicle for the expression of race and ethnicity. That made them ripe for the picking as far as National Socialists were concerned, and the Protestant Evangelical Church fell into line, helping to elect Hitler as their Chancellor.
After Hitler had been elected, a rally of German Christians was held at the Berlin Sportpalast, where banners proclaimed the unity of National Socialism and Christianity, interspersed with the omnipresent swastikas. One speaker, Reinhold Krause, was a school teacher and the Berlin district leader of the German Christians. He advocated the abandonment of the Old Testament with its tales of "cattle traders and pimps" in front of twenty thousand people. Resolutions were also proposed that would require all pastors to take a personal oath to Hitler, to require all churches to adopt and implement the Aryan Paragraph and to exclude converted Jews and their descendants from the church. Discussed from the stage were the following:
- the removal of all pastors unsympathetic with National Socialism;
- the expulsion of members of Jewish descent, who might be arrogated to a separate church;
- the implementation of the Aryan Paragraph church-wide;
- the removal of the Old Testament from the Bible;
- the removal of "non-German" elements from religious services;
- the adoption of a more "heroic" and "positive" interpretation of Jesus, who in pro-Aryan fashion should be portrayed to be battling mightily against corrupt Jewish influences.
Sound familiar? How about our "name it and claim it" prosperity gospel; American Christian Nationalism; the re-writing of whole sections of the Bible to make the Prophets and Jesus appear "less weak" and "less woke"; and Jesus portrayed as a warrior battling mightily against LGBTs, "woke", people of color, "dangerous liberals" and "uppty women".
It didn't take too long for the German government to backstab the Evangelical Church, telling them: "Positive Christianity is National Socialism ... [and] National Socialism is the doing of God's will.... Dr. Zoellner ... has tried to tell me that Christianity consists in faith in Christ as the Son of God. That makes me laugh ... Christianity is not dependent upon the Apostle's Creed .... [but] is represented by the Party .... the German people are now called ... by the Führer to a real Christianity .... The Führer is the herald of a new revelation." On the other hand, there wasn't much pushback from the Evangelical Church, who were only too happy to go along with Hitler's "Volkish" reimagining of Christianity.
Again, this should sound familiar: Think of Donald Trump -- by his own admission, an atheist, saying he is a Christian (one who can't quote a single passage from the Bible ); who "loves Christians so much they'll never have to vote again".
Enter the Confessing Church as a reaction to the Aryan Evangelical Protestants. What happened if you were a clergy member of the Confessing Church? You might deal with armed SS troops storming your church on a Sunday morning and murdering you in the pulpit -- if you were lucky. If you weren't shot on the spot, you would certainly be "interrogated" (read: tortured) and then sent to a concentration camp. If it was learned that you had been harboring Jews, Roma, Sinti or Slavs -- then you'd probably go to Auschwitz. If you were a parishioner, you could count on being interrogated and likely sent to a concentration camp. Hitler wanted for all Germans to be on the same page.
And yet the Confessing Church persisted. Several of their leaders did, in fact, go to concentration camps. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed just before the end of the war. The Confessing Church was the first to state, after the war was over, that they could have done more to help those who were being persecuted (Jews, Roma, Sinti, Slavs, Jehovah's Witnesses, political dissidents, etc.). We certainly didn't see anybody from the Evangelical Church stepping up to the plate to offer an apology.
Where am I going with this? After the election, I reached the point of rejecting God. It certainly appeared that "God had given us up" (Romans 1:24); and it sure seemed like God had turned God's back on us and left us to our own devices. I stopped praying. I stopped taking Communion. (I also came down with the worst case of pneumonia I've had in four decades!) I had decided I wasn't going to celebrate Christmas this year.
On Facebook, I went for broke: I posted that I had come to HATE the word "Christianity" and desperately wished there were any other word or phrase to describe myself. I figured I'd be excommunicated for that. Instead -- and this was a little miracle -- a half dozen people IM'd me to tell me they felt exactly the same way. Some were now calling themselves "Followers of Christ". Some were using their denominational name to self-identify. (I'm an Episcopalian.) All had the same feeling I did: they were repulsed by evangelical, Trump-worshiping Christians and how those "Christians" had co-opted and poisoned the name, "Christian".
And then I read about the Confessing Church, and how despite near-impossible odds they stayed true to the faith; and I decided if they could do this and oppose a corrupted Church, even at risk to their lives, and stay true to their faith -- there's no reason why I couldn't do the same.
So yesterday, I put up the Christmas tree, prepared the Advent candles and lit the first of them, and took Communion (from home: my lungs are still in pretty bad shape!). I will oppose Donald Trump and his reign of evil; I will oppose the evangelical, Trump-worshiping MAGAs; and I will continue to live my faith even if I have to die for it.
For the record -- I'm 70, and I've had a good life. If the MAGAs decide I need to be "silenced" -- so be it. At least I will have made things more difficult for them.