Draft Four: The first next step
On making sense of what happened in the US elections.
I am writing from a place of disorder.
Yes, I’m influenced by the return of Donald Trump to the American presidency, but it’s not the election itself that is on my mind, as everything else it brings into focus. After all, I live in Bucharest, Romania and the US is not my daily reality, even though the five years I spent there since 2003 do make it the country I’m most connected to outside of my own.
I was in Missouri for graduate studies in 2004, a contested election in which George W. Bush, a president that used a terrorist attack on American soil as a pretext to start wars that have ravaged the Middle East for the past 20 years, won re-election even though, as his opponents suggested, he was obviously and deeply wrong. It was the first time I had seen students cry for political reasons – young Democrats consoling themselves as if the world had fallen apart. I remember watching them with a mix of awe and admiration: they cared enough for the political life of the country to get involved, to get out the vote, to speak out, to campaign for what they cared about – from an end to the wars and the torture of prisoners, to marriage equality for gay couples and more. (FYI: You can still get involved an become an observer in the upcoming Romanian presidential and parliamentary elections).
But in 2004 I was also 23, and there was still a hint of the cynical Eastern European in me that said: you think this is really that bad? This will go on for four more years, and then you’re in the clear. Just come to my part of the world and you’ll see democratic dysfunction that is making people leave the country by the thousands.
This seems like forever ago. Social media was largely non-existent (MySpace anyone?), our information ecosystems were yet to be this fragmented, and we argued less about the truth of factual information. Even the Bush campaign was cynically transparent about how it made up stuff. There is this passage in an article from 20-years back that I sometimes recall, because it turned out not only to be true, but prescient.
It comes from a conversation a Bush aide had with reporter Ron Suskind:
The aide said that guys like me [Suskind] were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.”
I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That's not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
*
Bring this into the present. We are not only not sharing a reality, but we’re also living in a gazillion of filter bubbles, so many disparate realities that it’s become impossible to simulate or envision the totality of what others go through, what others see and hear, consume or believe.
Those realities have been created by storytellers: yes, journalists, but people give most of us way too much credit given our waning influence. Politicians, as the quote above suggests, have been more adept at world-building and creating alternate realities. So have celebrities, and activists of all stripes. And in the age we live in, so have influencers and content creators.
That aide from 20 years ago pitted journalism’s “reality-based community” against politicians and activists’ capacity to divert our attention at will. It’s what the first Trump campaign later referred to as “flooding the zone with shit” – giving often well-meaning actors “shit” to fact-check and parse through while they continued on their path.
To say the fight today remains one between unchecked and corrupt power, and journalists trying to pin it down is naïve and nostalgic. It assumes there is a public waiting to see the outcome in order to make fact-based decisions about their lives. But that’s over now – everyone has their own facts (delivered by friends, entertainers, misinformation spreaders, self-styled experts & gurus, well-meaning independent creators etc.). Everyone also has their own experts. And everyone – all of us – live in our own worlds, in which our belief system makes sense to sufficient others to make us feel righteous about it.
To pretend there is a broader societal consensus around any of it, to pretend you can break through to someone in another closed off world is, most often than not, delusional.
Hence, the disorder.
*
It’s been only a few days since the election, and I don’t know what’s in your inboxes, your feeds, in your conversations, but I have to remind you there is no single story of what happened, because every group has a story they champion or foreground.
Trump’s reelection is proof that the people voted with their pockets and that their economic hardships matter more than the guy’s countless lawsuits. It’s proof that America is deeply misogynistic and racist. It’s going to spell the end for Ukrainian dreams of regaining its lost territory. It’s going to embolden Israel to continue its campaign of destruction in Gaza. Or it’ll stop it. It’ll be bad for NATO. It’s proof liberal celebrity endorsements are useless. It’s proof Elon Musk was and always will be a genius. It’s also proof that elections are diversions from the real problems of the world – such as the death of Palestinian children, or the changing climate and the first year on record that broke the aspiration of the Paris accords to keep warming under 1.5 degrees.
Not to mention journalism: it’s proof that it’s dead. But also that it’s needed more than ever. That people are the media now, as Elon Musk put it. Which is, coincidentally, what one of my favorite indie musicians, Amanda Palmer, was saying more than 10 years ago. Amanda was celebrating disintermediation, social media, and people’s potential to create online as a force for good – look at it as leftists taking on capitalism. Musk is praising the capacity of social networks, forums, and an army of podcasts and newsletters to dismantle and delegitimize legacy institutions – look at it as the right taking down the “establishment”.
Everyone has a “take” – even those whose “take” is the need to not have one. Even this letter is a “take”, and stands as proof of fragmentation (or choice, depending on where you stand).
Oh, God. Tiring, isn’t it?
*
What I’m struggling with is adapting to this reality – or staying sane in it. One of the phrases tacked next to my desk says: “play in the ruins”. I wrote it down mostly thinking of my personal and professional life, but it works on a grander scale: the world as we knew it just a decade ago has crumbled. We can mourn it, rage against it, be nostalgic about it, or whatever you will, but it’s gone. If these are our ruins, the way forward is playing in them.
Nobody wants to play in the ruins. And nobody should have to. This is why people opposing wars and bombing and occupation are rightfully exasperated by our general lack of action or condemnation: this is no life.
And yet, somehow, it is. Or people learn to make it be.
Last weekend, I was in the woods with a group of journalism students and experts at a bootcamp on environmental journalism. I have to tell you, the information was bleak as hell: the rising temperatures, the coming water shortages, the continuing extinction of species, our neglect of biodiversity, and so on.
At one point, we were walking through what our host called “a virgin forest”, meaning it hasn’t been exploited by humans – mostly because there weren’t any trails all the way there because the landscape was too steep. Since it’s now in a protected natural area, he said it will stay like this. A virgin forest forever. I smiled. The man is a geologist – all through our walk he was pointing out rocks and peaks that used to be at the bottom of an ocean that was there millennia ago!
But he still said words like “forever”.
And that’s because he wakes up every day with a mission: protect nature. More specifically, the national park he helped to create in the area he was born and grew up in. Just like water eventually creeps through rock, his work paid off. And still, I found myself actively restraining my cynicism – admiring what he built, but morbidly wanting him to admit it’ll go away.
It might. It probably will. Nothing is forever.
But forever isn’t why he does it.
Yet, a kind of forever or totality is what many of us unconsciously believe needs to be achieved, or believe we need to feel safe. Total and complete victory. Total and complete agreement. Total and complete adherence to an idea. A unified theory of everything that will make us feel safe.
The pressure of the all-encompassing truth, the complete victory, the forever works at both extremes of the spectrum: it animates the zealots, powers the activists, drives the radicals. The pressure also depresses and demoralizes those that feel they can’t sign up for a fight with such impossible ideals. Or they sign up for it, and check out after just a few obstacles, as they realize the ideal will never be reached, and nothing less than perfect is good enough.
Let me illustrate: I have heard the swimmer David Popovici said he needs a loftier goal in life than just swimming, which is what he does better than almost anyone in the world. It’s why he raised more than 160.000 Euros for a Romanian NGO that tries to close state institutions housing abandoned children. And then I’ve seen him say: Why can’t this be done already?
But what if that target is impossible? What if there will always be a few that remain open? If you’re swimming for that, that’s a recipe for heartbreak.
If you’re in conservation to make sure no animal will ever be illegally hunted, that’s a recipe for heartbreak.
If you don’t vote because you’re expecting a pure candidate to emerge, that’s a recipe for heartbreak.
If you’re in journalism to defeat all autocrats, that’s a recipe for heartbreak.
*
Here’s an even better way to frame this, from the writer George Saunders, who just published five thought experiments in the aftermath of an election. This, as a conclusion to thought experiment number 4, which says our brain has not evolved enough to process all the stimuli it takes in:
Is it possible that, these days, heavily agenda-laced ideas from afar glow within each of us with such power that we mistake them for our own? Possible that the way we receive information, and the form in which it arrives, is causing certain issues to assume an exaggerated importance in our lives, out of proportion to 1) the extent to which these issues actually affect us and 2) what we might be able to do about them?
Isn’t this frustrating, because it makes us feel that our influence ought to be vast, but it isn’t? Is it possible that we have come to feel responsible for too much, for everything, even things outside of our control, and that this makes us feel like gods who have been unfairly disempowered?
Isn’t it depressing, feeling like a demoted god?
*
Overall, yes, there’s less trust. There’s less goodwill. There’s less collaboration. And we are using up more “bonding social capital” right now (as opposed to “bridging social capital”) – that is we spend time with people that agree with us, and we consume what reinforces our worldview.
On the flipside that means more voices are represented, more groups have strength, and there is more solidarity and love. We are, simultaneously, more isolated and more aware of who’s like us. More spread out, but more aware that we’re not alone in our preferences and identities.
I have days when I think this is amazing. I have days when I think it’s terrible.
What I don’t want, is to stay frozen at an imaginary crossroads, feeling demoted and disempowered.
*
On Wednesday, I was having lunch with my colleagues, and having one of those “it’s terrible” days.
You have read some of my previous letters – I do believe Trump, Putin, Orban and autocrats like them should be taken at their word (and actions): Trump will try to get retribution again perceived enemies, will surround himself will sycophants, and could try and implement mass deportations or tariffs, which might hurt his less well-off supporters more than it will help them. (The billionaires are OK, don’t worry). Not to mention his crass, bullying and threatening behavior: as a journalist it’s not fun to hear jokes about being shot through because you are the “fake news media”.
So, I was sad at the outcome. Not surprised – my bleak consumption habits helped me prepare these past few years –, but sad, bordering on a cynic-impersonating-a-rational-actor. I believe I said something along these lines: with so many autocrats in power around the world, how the hell am I supposed to vote according to my principles and values? That won’t change a thing.
I was thinking about Romania, and my desire to vote in the upcoming Parliamentary elections for a progressive party – one that wants to expand rights, tackle broken social systems that perpetuate poverty and discrimination, find ways to tax progressively, and be more environmentally-minded.
None of the mainstream parties really care about all this: all are campaigning on forms of nativist and conservative agendas, bankrolled by interest groups (businesses, local playmakers etc.), shapeshifting to please. So what’s my option, I asked my co-workers. To back SENS, a recently formed party made up of many naïve college students who “want to make the world better”? (One guy in the race actually was a student of mine just a couple of years ago). Even if they get four people into Parliament, they will be eaten alive, I said.
As I was ranting (like a grouchy middle aged man), my peers in a better frame of mind countered: but maybe that’s what they need to gain strength. Maybe that’s we need: people naïve enough to go in there and get their ass kicked, but that we support to bounce back, and fight on principle, and eventually win some battles, too. Like water chipping at the rocks.
A couple of days later, I took the latest Romanian political compass test – 30 questions asking how much you cared about a bunch of social, political and economical issues. Apparently, I’m 88% percent compatible with SENS’ progressive agenda. REPER, another smallish progressive force, came second with 85% compatibility.
Great. Now what?
*
Here’s where I think I’m going with this.
There are a lot of contradictions around us. There is way less certainty than ever. And a lot of that is just a byproduct of knowing too much, of being exposed to too many people, of perpetually giving into FOMO.
Cynicism, as practiced today, is the easy way out. It’s the theory that people are selfish, greedy, and dishonest, as professor of psychology Jamil Zaki writes in his new book, Hope for Cynics:
Cynicism is not a radical worldview. It’s a tool of the status quo. This is useful to elites, and propagandists sow distrust to better control people. Corrupt politicians gain cover by convincing voters that everyone is corrupt. Media companies trade in judgment and outrage. Our cynicism is their product, and business is booming.
Locked up in our worlds, in our bubbles, in identities we feel are too fragile to encompass too many at once, we turn to cynicism to keep others away. Maybe to turn even our own potential allies away – everyone can be a convenient temporary ally, but no more, else we’ll get hurt or tricked. When things go bad, our cynicism feels like protection. But it’s also a shield against connection, discovery, curiosity, hope, and action.
I’m not calling on any of us to join a political movement to change the whole world. On the contrary: I always believed each one does what they can, in their own universe, in their own way. But the doing is actually hard, because we always think too far ahead: what if we won’t succeed? The demoted God syndrome is strong with us.
Oliver Burkeman has just written brilliantly about this fallacy of thinking too far ahead, about how we become stuck especially after moments like a huge election, or natural disasters, or other tragedies: “It’s like I’m standing here, on a tiny island of time and space, a miniscule outcrop in the middle of the ocean; and yet for all sorts of reasons, I find myself constantly leaning out over the water, attempting to fiddle with things that are outside my reach – and losing my balance in the process.”
All we have is the moment.
The first step.
Young writers I work with always worry when we discuss ideas: “Will my piece be read?”
It amuses me, because it’s the wrong question: for a story to be read, it needs to exist, and to exist, it needs to be written, and for it to be written, it needs information, which needs to be gathered, which happens in interviews, which need to be scheduled.
You can only control that next step, the scheduling – and you should. I have no clue whether your story will be read, but if you don’t make a call or send a message to schedule a first interview, it’ll also never have a chance to be read. Because it will never actually exist. Writes Burkeman:
From this limited human position – in which you’re only ever here; in which only the present exists; and in which it’s only ever possible to take the next action – it’s perfectly possible to accomplish the most impressive, admirable, or difference-making things that were ever on the cards for you to begin with.
In fact, I’d go further: it’s the only position from which anything good, or indeed anything at all, has ever been done. By anyone. Ever.
*
In all this disorder, all I can do – maybe all we can do –, is just to take the next step.
Imagine those clothes hanging on a rack in your living room, days after having been washed (I see you). Start with a T-shirt, then the next one, then the socks, and so on. Ten minutes later, they’ll be gone. Or that stack of books on your nightstand that “one day” you’ll get to. Start with 10 pages tonight, then maybe 10 more tomorrow. Who knows what might happen?
Problems will not disappear. Accomplishments can’t last forever.
But is that why we pursue any kind of change? Because if it is, maybe we need to lower the pressure, and learn to enjoy more modest victories. To me, that’s a hopeful thought, and hope – not blind optimism – is an antidote to despair.
What I’m offering is not a recipe. Is not the truth. It’s one of millions of takes, in a fragmented and polarized world, from a dude unsure of things, constantly fighting his own cynical tendencies, working in an industry in ruins (and in denial about it), writing these words as his own first next steps back to action.
SIDEDISHES:
This was long, and I don’t think you need more recommendations. Apart from what I quoted above, here’s what has helped me in the past week. Kamala Harris couldn’t outrun inflation. How the media has fundamentally changed. The cost of cynicism. Racism still exists. Trump justifies violent speech and behaviors. The narrative of liberalism and democracy has collapsed. Another letter to a young journalist. The left can’t build an influencer army. Do Romanian progressive parties even stand a chance? How to deal with disappointment? I’m gonna love the hell out of you.
