The world today is orders of magnitude more uncertain and dangerous than ever before — at least since the last world war. The reasons are splashed across headlines and debated daily on television. Russia features in this uncertainty more than at any time since the Cold War ended. We are entering the age of Cyber War, where no secrets are out of reach of the adversary. We watch with bitter regret the finish of our era of Hope and Change. With this new president, there will be change, but maybe not the good kind. Ordinary people feel less and less like they have power over anything outside their front door. And maybe even inside; the doors and windows of our lives seem melted away and open to the roughest of wind and weather to come.
Most of this turmoil is linked firmly to attempts by conservative factions worldwide to uproot and replace the liberal order that has existed for decades. The effect of this is harshest for those at the bottom of the economic ladder, and is, inarguably, a boon for the richest at the top of it, including the president. This fact — for more than half of the U.S. population who did not vote for him — is cataclysmic, and has happened with frightening speed. Three months after Election Day, most of us are still shaking our heads, feeling betrayed and shocked.
Less than two years ago, I learned — at a personal level — how one day, a single hour, can violently uproot all that was familiar and safe and immutable. It was crystallized for me when my son took his own life. He was my child, my only son, a grown man. Out of work for the third time in five years, he was losing his grip on the circumstances around him, broke and living on the kindness of friends. I watched in dismay as he grew more despairing. The shock of his death shattered me, and continues to deliver a gut punch daily. The out-of-control-ness of it never leaves. It has carved a space in my soul that feels like a live thing, with weight and matter and sharp edges that poke out to batter me with questions, mostly whys.
Just as people lack a sense of control over changing political and economic realities, I exist now in a limbo of grief, mourning my son and the fact that I could not stop this tragedy. People tell me there was nothing I could have done. And yet, my heart still searches for what I missed, for that one thing that might have prevented it, that might have spared us this horror. If one is a believer, there is comfort there. I believe that my son is at peace with the Almighty. I am an imperfect believer, though, and so frequently find myself questioning, hoping rather than knowing that it is so. Because the death of one's child alters the existence we thought we knew and spirituality can be difficult to hang onto.
Such existential questions demand answers. Given the actions of the president, and what looks like calamitous distortions of our government, and the world, the political landscape has shifted and I truly believe that we are all on shaky ground. Already, the changes feel catastrophic; for instance, billionaire cabinet nominees with the wrong experience, the shredding of our relationships with allies like Australia and Great Britain, and the exacerbation of tensions with Iran and Russia.
But despite the terrible "breaking news" issuing daily from the White House, we do have options, and must use the tools at our disposal. Many members of Congress, while initially standing against the havoc of dreadful governance, soon seem to fall in line like so many dominoes. This clinging to political expediency has the effect of normalizing the actions and words of this administration, which are anything but normal. We must not become complacent. Now, we who can, must gather ourselves to act, must call friends, make signs and march, protest peacefully, sign petitions. We must not allow the media to be demonized, but rather strengthened. Above all, we must contact our congressmen and women — call, write, email, tweet — communicate to them our wishes. We will begin there, as our first positive steps toward a return to normalcy, rather than cowering under the belief that this "new normal" can ever be true. We won't give up.
We will fight.
Ann May is an alumna of CU Boulder and longtime resident of Boulder County. She lives in Niwot.
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