Outside the Beltway

Advice From Popehat

Definitely not advice from the pope

Matt Bernius · Wednesday, November 6, 2024 · 16 comments

Focus on the hat, not the guy wearing it, because I’m too busy to find a picture of Ken White.

Long-time readers might have noticed that I like Ken White (aka Popehat). Beyond his fierce advocacy for free speech and his grounded critique of prosecutors (having been one himself), I respect the heck out of the man for being so public about his mental and emotional health struggles. As someone who deals with and tries from time to time to write about those mental and emotional health issues, I take so much inspiration from Ken. I also trust Ken (and his reasoning) enough to seriously consider his arguments on topics where my view diverges seriously.

This post isn’t about one of those disagreements. Instead, I’m sharing a reflection he sent to the Serious Trouble podcast subscriber list. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in this for people struggling with what happened yesterday.

I cosign everything Ken writes. Here are a few highlights, with a few punctuating comments:

Trump won yesterday, as I feared he would. I firmly believe America — and likely the world — will get significantly worse for at least a generation, probably more. I’ll spare you, for now, the why. Frankly, I think you either already accept it or will never accept it. The things I care about, like the rule of law and equality before it, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, free trade in service of free people, relative prosperity, protection of the weak from the strong, truth, and human dignity are all going to suffer. Bullies and their sycophants and apologists will thrive.

If it isn’t clear from past posts, I largely agree with Ken about what could happen. I hope he is wrong about the generational impact of this victory, but given my track record on prognostication, I don’t think my read on future events is remotely definitive.

If you think he’s wrong about that first statement, this may not be the post for you. In fact, I can guarantee you that it’s certainly not for you, and everything that follows will probably trigger you. I leave it up to you how you want to react to that warning.

For the rest, these are some of Ken’s suggestions:

Ask Yourself if You’ve Earned The Right To Wallow: I’m a middle-aged, comfortable, straight white guy. I’m not going to take the brunt of what happens. So I have decided not to wallow or give in to hopelessness. I haven’t fucking earned it. Americans far less fortunate than I fought greater and even more entrenched injustice. Civil rights protestors, anti-war protestors, African-Americans, women, gays and lesbians, Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses, all sorts of people have bravely faced death and penury and injustice without giving up and without the protections I enjoy. What right do I have to give up? None. Maybe you’re different. You may not be as fortunate. I’m not judging you. I’m only judging myself and inviting you to ask the question. Be patient and merciful with people less able to fight.

*insert standing_ovation.gif here*

This. So this. As someone increasingly involved in organizing and spending a lot of time in and with marginalized communities, I am regularly reminded of how I have been blessed to spend most of my years playing the game of life on the lowest difficulty setting. I’ve been spending most of the day thinking about is where I can help take the load off of others–at least for a bit. Beyond having prepared myself for this outcome while hoping for a different one, that focus (and the reinforcement of it from Ken) has helped me keep my head on straight.

Reconsider Any Belief In Innate American Goodness: Are Americans inherently good, freedom-loving, devoted to free speech and free worship, committed to all people being created equal? That’s our founding myth, and isn’t it pretty to think so? But a glance at history shows it’s not true. Bodies in graves and jails across America disprove it. We’re freedom-loving when times are easy, devoted to speech and worship we like with lip service to the rest, and divided about our differences since our inception. That doesn’t make us worse than any other nation. It’s all very human […]

Start Out Making a Small Difference: A country that votes for Trump is broken in very complicated and daunting ways. Harris could have won in a landslide and 45% of the people voting for Trump would still have reflected a country broken in terrible ways. Moreover, any road out is long and rocky and painful. A Trumpist GOP has control of the entire government, the judiciary is dominated by judges who are Trumpist or willing to yield to Trumpism if it gets rid of Chevron deference, and state and local politics are increasingly dominated by extremists. The GOP is doing everything it can to rig the game to make it harder to vote our way out, and after four more years a stuffed judiciary will be even less inclined to stop them. The struggle to fight back is generational, not simple.

But nobody’s telling you that you have to fix everything. You can fix something.

I work in the area of civic tech. When you work with the government (particularly the criminal legal system), you see failings that are profoundly disheartening. Often, those issues appear so big that they are insurmountable. It’s very easy to despair, especially if you want fast change.

I have given up on fast change for two reasons.

First, as I fear that we are about to find out once again when you “move fast and break things” in government, the things that get broken are ultimately people. Hopefully, I’m wrong.

More importantly, fast change is not sustainable and can easily be rolled back (as we have seen and probably will see again). So, like Ken, I’ve come to focus on inter-generational change. This is the type of change you will not be around to see all the impacts of. The beautiful thing about that is it puts you in a community with the past and present and, most importantly, a future that you will not be around to enjoy. I have found this a beneficial shift to help through moments like this one.

BTW, if you’re not sure of what you should do or how you can help, I highly recommend considering using the really wise Mariame Kaba’s 4 questions to help yourself find a direction:

These are the questions I regularly ask myself when I’m outraged about injustice:

1. What resources exist so I can better educate myself?
2. Who’s already doing work around this injustice?
3. Do I have the capacity to offer concrete support & help to them?
4. How can I be constructive?

Back to Ken:

Believe Unapologetically: Nobody likes to lose. So when your side loses an election, there’s huge social and psychological pressure to change your stance, to moderate what you believe so you don’t feel like a loser. Don’t do it. Things are worth believing and fighting for. […] Not only is abandoning your values weak, it’s credulous. The Trumpist narrative will be that the electorate soundly rejected anti-Trump values. But did they? How much of the electorate acted from indifference, indifference that will be swayed the other way some day by different economic or cultural factors? Consume skeptically the “this shows you must abandon these goals” narratives.

Again, to go back to Kaba, faith and hope are both disciplines. They are muscles you need to build up and maintain. They need to be practiced and cultivated. They atrophy quickly.

If there is anything admirable to learn from Donald Trump, it’s that you keep on grinding. Any other candidate would have walked away in the aftermath of 2020. For whatever reason, he did not and did what anyone would have thought impossible.

I’ve skipped over items. Please read the post in its entirety (especially to appreciate Ken’s excellent use of swearing as a punctuation–something else about him that I sincerely appreciate). I will close with two of Ken’s later points. Both are things that I know I will come back to in the days, months, and years to come:

Don’t Let Regression Trick You Into Abandoning Progress: I know what Christ calls me to do — to turn the other cheek and love the Trumpists. I am not equal to the task, and I’m at peace with that and will accept the price. However, I must advocate for a similar concept: we can’t allow Trumpism to trick us into abandoning key values like due process of law, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion, just because they scorn them.

[…]

Resist. Do not go gently. Do not be cowed by the result. Resist. Agitate, agitate, agitate. The values you believe in, the ones that led you to despise Trumpism, are worth fighting for whether or not we are currently winning. Ignore the people who will, from indifference or complicity or cowardice, sneer at you for holding to those values. Speak out. Every time you act to defend your fellow people, even in small ways, you defy Trumpism. In the age of Trumpism, simple decency is revolutionary. Be revolutionaries.

Again, here’s the full post.