What I Learned from 2016
Lessons on pace and discernment
I have a lot of young people in my life, and over the past week I’ve been asked variations of, “How did you get through 2016?” I assume they mean how did I get through Nov. 2016 to Jan. 2017, and then how did I get through 2016-2020. They’re asking, I think, how do you go on when you’re carrying this much rage and fear?
I’m 48 and I take my elder-ish position seriously. It means something that people as young as 19, 22 and 32 see the way I carry myself and the way I live my life and they want to hear what I think. But, and this is a major caveat, I am a white woman and white women are not going to be the way out of this.
Here are some things I learned from 2016.
Pace
Pace yourself. He’s not even in office yet and some of you have already spun out to the point of exhaustion. No judgement! I did the same thing eight years ago. The day after Trump won in 2016, I (moronically) created a public Facebook page that was helpful for about half the day, then went viral and turned into a hellscape. I had to shut it down to protect my sanity.
These next four years are going to be a marathon, not a sprint. All this rage and fear you’re feeling now? We’ll need it. There will be a time when action is needed and you’re going to be able to take this momentum and plug in. Save your rage. Preserve your sanity. Pace yourself.
Discernment
In these early days, be discerning about what messages you allow in. Personally, I’m of no use to anyone if I’m disregulated, or not emotionally sober. I went offline for the week following this election. I still read the newsletters I subscribe to and the news, but I did not read seven days of hot takes.
Equally important, be discerning about what messages you put out. This is a great time to check in on your media literacy skills. Do you know the difference between misinformation and disinformation? Do you know the difference between journalism and aggregation?
For instance, I work at an alt-weekly and we report on local news and politics. Our staff writers gather facts from sources, write those facts into a cohesive story, and then that story gets fact checked and edited before it gets published. Then there are aggregator accounts like The Tennessee Holler, or Under the Desk News, who take these news stories, reshape them and turn them into content. Because they are essentially a social media account, they are not held to the same journalistic standards (or any standards) as a news organization. The people who run these (widely popular) aggregator accounts are not journalists. They are content creators, WHICH IS FINE. But know the difference before you share that video to your stories. You may not be sharing a researched, fact checked, reported story. You may be sharing out-of-context, outrage clickbait.
Go ahead and assume that people know you’re mad. You don’t have to perform it.
There are two things I’ve been carrying with me that have helped this week and might be good for you to hear, too.
I recently went to Parnassus Books to celebrate Margaret Renkl’s new backyard journal, Leaf, Cloud, Crow, a companion to her book The Comfort of Crows. During the Q & A someone asked Margaret how she’s feeling about the election, which at the time, was still a week away.
I’m paraphrasing, but Margaret talked about how important it is for her to believe that people are good; that people aren’t choosing to spray their yards with a chemical that kills Blue Jays (for example). People are just being lied to at a magnitude and scale that is very hard to break through.
Again, I am paraphrasing, but the bones of what Margaret said have stuck with me. I also need to believe that people are good. I have a tendency to get lost in the brokenness of the world. I stare too long at it, paralyzed. To be useful, to be of service, I have to unfreeze. I have to move.
The other thing I’ve been carrying with me comes from Roxane Gay. On the day of the election she wrote a fantastic newsletter about hope. The day after the election she sent out a follow up saying that she didn’t regret what she wrote. In that same newsletter, she wrote about the day after Trump won in 2016.
I’m going to paraphrase because I assume she put it behind a paywall on purpose.
She said that the day after the 2016 election, she had a doctor’s appointment, so she went to that. And then she remembered she had to pick up her dry cleaning, so she stopped and did that. And then a few days later, she had to fly to a speaking engagement, so she did that. She just kept waking up every day and doing life and then the four years were over.
(Please read her entire newsletter because she expands this into an crucial point about equity and survival.)
But this is the part that stays with me. The getting up every day and living your life. Not in a head-in-the-sand way, but in a defiant way.
Trump is not the candidate I voted for in 2024, or in 2016. He’s a nightmare and I’m scared of what he’s going to do over the next four years. I will continue fighting for my Black, trans, non-binary, and queer friends because they are going to face the brunt of this administration’s bad policies. I’ll continue waking up every day and living my big, fat life in defiance of all the ways this country tries to keep us quiet, small and obedient.
Absolutely perfect. Thank you. At Ann Patchett's event for the new Bel Canto the night before the election, she said that, "No one is allowed to take my sanity." I have adopted that. Also, I haven't said that man's name since 2016.
Love this, thank you ❤️