The Soulless Among Us Are Not Stronger

A nation holds its breath. 

Exhausted from the culmination of struggle, divisiveness and rage that has imploded and seared through our humanity over the last four years, we have waited for this moment of truth, our birthright to vote our conscience. 

While it is too soon to celebrate or lose hope, we will forever live with the haunting, inevitable knowledge that, no matter the outcome, the deep and irreparable fissures in our society have been exposed. That the foundation of greed, racism, hate, sexism and misogyny are not only more prevalent than we imagined, but embraced with fervor by a huge portion of our population, and that in itself is heart wrenching. We live and wander among the demons that are not afraid to show their fire while spewing their contempt. Under our current administration, we have felt the deep burning void of a soul, listened to the morally vacant rants, cringed at the hate filled proclamations, and most tragic, have come to realize that the people who voted this man into power see him for exactly who he is and choose to keep him there. 

I had so wanted so badly to believe that it was ignorance instead of compliance, but I woke up to my own disillusionment, unable to ignore the mounting evidence before me. The absolute devastation of seeing the fabric of what we are really made of, is at the very least a recognition I had hoped was a mirage. However, the reality sits squarely in front of me, as the layers have peeled away to reveal the dark, broken, insidious underbelly of our society. This election should have been a landslide but instead it stands as a reminder of who some of us really are. This is my America, and I didn’t even realize how deeply I was mourning it until now. 

This country that we have long touted as being the greatest in the world has been diminished and because now we have seen it out in the open, we can never look at it through the same lens. So again we look to the future, turn our outrage to action, our heartbreak to evolution. For those of us with a deep moral thread and a yearning for decency, our work is now beginning anew because our eyes can never be unopened to all the damage there is to repair.

Still, through the disappointment I have felt in mankind recently, in the deepest recesses of my soul there is patriotism flowing through me, a burning desire to help reshape and rekindle the Land of the Free, the nation I call home for not only myself, but my posterity. I made an unspoken promise to my children when I brought them into the world that they would have a safe haven here, filled with opportunities in a democracy that could thrive on equality and fairness. I knew there were fractures, centuries of leadership by a bigoted-wealthy-straight-gray-haired-white-man-patriarchy and a continual uphill battle for human rights, yet I believed we could work for progress, use our voices and our courage for rectitude. I never imagined that it would burn down around us in such a short amount of time and with such evil exuberance. That is the single thing that tears at me, and so many others, fueling my resolve. I cannot leave an empty shell of a country for my daughters and grandsons. 

Perhaps there is beauty in this awakening, in the knowing that we can only see what needs to be done through the stark contrast and adversity of inequity and the dismantling of a republic we’ve taken for granted. Our mission is laid before us, offering us reflection, propelling us forward to demand equity and a fair society for all. It is now and has always been the responsibility of the people to speak up for growth and evolution, to exact justice where there is none, to ask of ourselves to do better because we can. The frightening, fundamental truth about this is not that Trump has turned our America into this self-deceptive, xenophobic, narcissistic autocracy, but that this is the America people are inviting and asking for more of. They’re content here. All he had to do was yell, stomp his feet, wave a flag and they came running in droves. 

At least now we know what we’re fighting against, which serves to illuminate what we are fighting for. There is power in knowledge, along with great peace and comfort. 

We are not done yet.

The soulless among us are not stronger, just louder. Not more powerful, just more persistent. There have always been haters gathering sheep like a Pied Piper, but they lead astray with self serving cowardice and we do not. I believe that hope is a broader shield than hate, and action a stronger sword than fear. I believe that at the core of who we are as a people there truly does exist goodness, kindness and purity. I see it all the time. As disillusioned as I am, I will continue to walk in anticipation and faith that our humanity is alive and well, that our voices can be used for good and that nothing will ever take that away from us.