Finding strength when gloom saps our will
Challenges in the public arena seem insurmountable, but we have a tool to sustain us
Where do we find encouragement on tough days? Maybe there’s a way to more clearly hear the music. (Photo by Ryk Naves on Unsplash)
At the chilly dawn on the first day of March, as my pup and I set out for our morning walk, a bright song came from a tree high above: “Cheery, cheery, cheery.” Maybe a Carolina wren, I thought — a bird whose range of lyrics, notes and rhythms might impress a maestro. But it’s too early for that little bird here at the 42nd latitude, I told myself, though it’s surely not necessary to start the first day of meteorological spring with such thoughts of global warming. Then again, the TV weather guy did report that we’ve had our community’s warmest winter on record. No, I decided: Just enjoy that cheerful chirp, and breathe the clean Upstate air with gratitude. And so, as golden light began to fill the clear sky, my dog and I started our day.
We need to take inspiration and encouragement wherever we can find it these days, like from that bird song at daybreak. Our hearts shatter daily as we witness the humanitarian crisis in Gaza arising from ancient hatreds and recent sins. Our spirits fall as we absorb the declining capacity of our democracy to handle even the basic responsibilities of government. Our anger rises as we hear politicians, over and over again, intentionally distorting reality to enflame voters’ fears and thereby try to gain power.
You could pick any number of other disappointments, frustrations or almost unfathomable realities — the attack on education and freedom of thought, the persistence of gun violence, the toll of wealth inequality, the evidence of healthcare systems’ failures, the implacability of ethnic and racial inequity — and you might find any bright morning ruined, then, by the certainty that the day ahead will yield more bad news.
How has it come to this? What happened to the assurance of progress that characterized American life for two centuries? Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman whose trenchant observations of our society in the early 19th century helped set our sense of national character, praised the notion that Americans “have all a lively faith in the perfectability of man… They all consider society as a body in a state of improvement.” That seemed true enough until quite recently. We have always been optimists.1
Now, not so much. David Brooks wrote in The New York Times this week that “a culture of pessimism” has come to grip Donald Trump’s Republican party, rendering nearly half the American political system “inward-looking… drab and defeatist” — in contrast to the outlook of Ronald Reagan, who sunnily quoted Emerson, “We are the country of tomorrow.” 2 That loss of confidence mostly dooms any effort to solve intractable problems that require more than the bare majority that Democrats may summon, given our Constitution’s antimajoritarian elements, including the over-weighting of small states in the Senate and the electoral college. Beyond that, though, the pessimism virus that infects the national psyche with a “cannot-do” mentality leads many of us, regardless of our ideology or the remnants of our flagging idealism, to shrug and simply go along with the glum reality of the way things are.
What becomes essential, then — at least, if we are to avoid losing hope — is to find an energizing principle that can help us overcome entropy. The risk that good people may give up and yield the field to the cynics, hustlers and simpletons is one we cannot accept. We have to find the will to stand firm.
One of the early evolutionary advantages of homo sapiens was their tendency to band together. Our ancestors’ sociability helped protect them from predators. It’s no wonder, then, that human psychology, many millennia later, is marked by our eagerness to be with other people, and to fit into the group. It’s a key explanation of why we go along with others in our cohort.3
The psychologist Robert Cialdini, an expert in the psychology of persuasion, conducted an experiment some years back in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park, where visitors were confronted with signs warning of theft: “Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year, mostly a small piece at a time.” To test his theories of persuasion, Cialdini had the sign removed on one particular path. He found that thefts decreased by one-third compared to a path that displayed the sign. That is, Cialdini concluded, many visitors stole from the park because they knew that others were doing it, too, even if they considered it the wrong thing to do.4 It's as though our decision-making takes a shortcut by following others’ paths.
Beliefs and opinions operate similarly, psychologists say: We yield our independent judgment to what we know others think. That’s why social media influencers have become so — well, influential: Humans’ emotions are like those of animals in a pack, who follow one another to make the kill, though our goal is status rather than a meal of fresh antelope. It’s not just former contestants on The Bachelor who wield market power as influencers; clever young people with no inherent customer base have managed to turn their interests into million-dollar bonanzas on social sites. No wonder a 2022 poll found that one-fourth of Gen Z-ers plan to become influencers.5 “Influencer culture has officially taken over the world,” Forbes declared last year.6
The effect is the same in public affairs, but influencers tend not to be young people with social media accounts as much as ambitious charismatics with bands of followers and, typically, the backing of somebody with a lot of money. Political bosses used to shape campaigns; now you can get to Congress if you have a stand-out presence in the media. That’s a lot more important in 2024 than a campaign ground organization or a partisan leader’s endorsement. And with the rise of blatantly biased mass media — an invasive species that the despicable Australian-born Rupert Murdoch imported to these shores when he created Fox News in 1996 — the influence of malevolent forces in politics is easily amplified.
This isn’t really new. Trough the ages, politics has often come down to a struggle between the drive for popularity and the ideal of doing what’s right. The do-the-right-thing crowd has always been the minority position; note that the book that won John F. Kennedy a Pulitzer prize, Profiles in Courage, spotlights only eight individuals. Kennedy cited three pressures that make it hard for a politician to develop the habit of courage: the pressures to be re-elected, to respond to interest groups and constituents, and to be liked.7
Even people of good will find it difficult to stand up to all those pressures all the time, and they’re particularly vulnerable in the United States to our society’s greatest influencer, Donald Trump.
Case in point: John Cornyn, the Texas senator who hopes to succeed Mitch McConnell as the chamber’s Republican leader. In 2020, Cornyn likened his relationship with Donald Trump to a bad marriage: “Maybe like a lot of women who get married and think they're going to change their spouse, and that doesn’t usually work out very well,” he said.8 Cornyn and I were college classmates, and I’ve long considered him a decent fellow. But rather belying his effort to strike an independent image four years ago, only two of the 53 Republican senators serving during Trump’s term voted more steadfastly with the president.9 And while for months in this election cycle Cornyn seemingly wrestled with his conscience and dodged endorsing Trump — by saying the ex-president couldn’t win against Joe Biden — he finally went along with the all-in-for-Trump pack in January. Given that bad marriage analogy, you might say John Cornyn moved back in with the abuser.
Those who cave in to powerful influences may deserve a measure of understanding. It must be awkward for Cornyn, a former judge and state attorney general, to back a candidate facing four criminal cases and 91 felony charges, a man who insists the American system of justice is corrupt and has called for the “termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution” in order to let him take power. Hard to swallow that, yes, but in the context of the pressures cited by Kennedy — to be elected, to honor one’s constituents and to be popular — it would no doubt be harder for Cornyn to buck the pack. Even so, the course he has taken might raise doubts about Cornyn’s character, wouldn’t you think?
Although seeing what happens to those who behave more honorably, by contrast, may make them seem foolish. Liz Cheney — who was, like Cornyn, a leader of her party in Congress, and who similarly voted the party line with Trump — was both politically and socially ostracized when she called out Trump’s unforgivable behavior in inciting the Capitol insurrection on Jan 6, 2021. Cornyn still has a seat and a vote in the U.S. Congress; Cheney does not.
Yet the value of that seat and the vote it carries diminishes as its cost in expended honor grows. And in that calculation lies the formula for all of us confronting the challenges and disappointments of the day.
For the psychic value of personal integrity is surely more rewarding for fully aware humans than the pleasure of social acceptance or political power. Liz Cheney surely isn’t diminished daily by the sense that she has sacrificed her principles, as I suspect a lot of smart politicians are. Knowing that we are standing up for what’s right can give us power to get out of bed in the morning rather than pulling the blankets over our heads in fear of what bad news may lurk in the daylight’s shadows.
You might even consider that response to be our responsibility. That’s what John Kennedy told us.
“In a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, ‘holds office;’ every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities,” Kennedy wrote in Profiles in Courage. “We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.”
And the honest response to challenges, including those that make us anxious, can be healthful and self-affirming. Great athletes know that the adrenaline that pumps during intense moments of competition doesn’t take away the pain of injuries, but rather distracts them from a focus on pain — sometimes making them feel invincible.10 Similarly, even in matters of intellect and emotion, like the challenges we face psychically due to hard issues in public affairs, the adrenaline rush that results can protect us. We often find energy if we stand up for the fight.
That’s why drawing on your personal integrity can heighten your senses as it strengthens your backbone. And, yes, that might even help you to hear the sweet song of birds at dawn and appreciate the light of a new day. That is sustaining power, friends, and it’s what might propel us forward on the long road ahead.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/816/816-h/816-h.htm
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/opinion/donald-trump-republican-gop.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/after-service/201705/the-science-behind-why-people-follow-the-crowd
Cialdini, R. (2007). Influence: The psychology of persuasion (Rev. ed. ; 1st Collins business essentials ed.). New York: Collins.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/3614182-1-in-4-gen-z-ers-plan-to-become-social-media-influencers/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2023/06/23/the-rise-of-influencers-in-media/?sh=7d1975ff695f
https://www.jfklibrary.org/events-and-awards/profile-in-courage-award/about-the-book
https://people.com/politics/senator-john-cornyn-compares-relationship-trump-bad-marriage/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/
https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/what-to-know-adrenaline-rush
NEWSCLIPS FROM THE UPSTATES
Dispatches from our common ground *
Wherein each week we look around what we call the nation’s Upstates — those places just a bit removed from the center of things — to find illuminating news and intriguing viewpoints, which you might not otherwise see.
This week, we share reporting published here:
Martinsville, Ind. (Reporter-Times, reporter-times.com)
Lebanon, Pa. (Lebanon Daily News, ldnews.com)
Pueblo, Colo. (Pueblo Chieftain, chieftain.com)
Savannah, Ga. (Savannah Morning News, savannahnow.com)
NOTE: The complete “Newsclips from the Upstates” section, and The Upstate American Midweek Extra Edition, which is sent to email boxes on some Wednesdays, are available only to paid subscribers. Thanks for your support!
INDIANA
Why officials want you to cut down Callery pear trees
In the early 1900s, an arboretum in Maryland began to import Callery pear trees from Asia, and when developers began to build suburban neighborhoods after World War II, the impressive white flowers and small size made them ideal for planting. But Karl Schneider of the Indianapolis Star reports that the trees have become so widespread that they are threatening native species. So Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources now recommends cutting larger Callery pear trees down to a stump, then treating the stump with an herbicide. And Carmel, Ind., like other municipalities, is undertaking a Callery pear removal program, no matter how popular the blossoming trees are in springtime.
PENNSYLVANIA
Republican officials remove ballot drop box
Despite pleas from residents, Lebanon County Commissioners voted 2-1 to move forward with their plan to eliminate the ballot drop box behind the county courthouse that voters have in prior elections used for mail-in ballots, reports Matthew Toth in the Lebanon Daily News. The action is part of a national move by Republican officials to tighten “ballot integrity” by limiting voters’ access to voting. About 27% of the county’s requested mail-in ballots were deposited in the drop box during the last election season, which had a surveillance camera on top, according to officials. The Republican commissioners already voted to limit its use to business hours; now they say they want to station a worker to sit at a box nearer the courthouse to watch as the ballots are dropped in, ensuring that nobody deposits more than one. The article does not indicate any instance in Lebanon County of voter fraud.
COLORADO
Residents divided on whether nuclear should replace coal
With a major coal-powered plant on the road to closure, residents of Pueblo are offering varied views on whether it should be replaced with an “advanced nuclear"“ plant, reports James Bartolo in the Pueblo Chieftain. Much of the concern arises from the loss of $11 million in payroll and more than 16 percent of the county’s property tax base. But opponents of nuclear power cite safety concerns as an argument against the proposal, which has been endorsed by a local advisory committee. Public officials have not yet taken a position.
GEORGIA
Can winding shores replace straight-line canals of rice fields?
A legacy of slavery remains along Georgia’s coastline: miles of fields for long-abandoned rice cultivation that were fed by canals carved by enslaved people. Now, reports John Deem in the Savannah Morning News, there’s a push to require the state to turn over ownership of those marshlands to people who can prove their hereditary links to land grants that the colonial planter class received from the King of England and colonial governors. A law being debated in the state legislature would allow those new landowners to then alter the otherwise protected marshland, but only for “conservation purposes.” One key issue: It might take centuries for the natural flow of saltwater along the 100-mile coast to alter the grid-like freshwater impounds that now line the coast. So the vision of pastoral tidal creeks again meandering through the coastal areas may be myth, not likely reality. And the land cultivated by enslaved people may be preserved for all citizens, rather than only the descendants of the slaveholders.
DOWNLOAD OR LISTEN NOW: MORE FROM THE UPSTATE AMERICAN
IF YOU’RE A READER who wants to hear more of Rex Smith’s views, check www.wamc.org for his weekly on-air commentary aired by Northeast Public Radio. Here’s a link to the latest essay. And if your interest is specific to American media, you can download the podcast of The Media Project, the 30-minute nationally-syndicated discussion that Rex leads each week on current issues in journalism. In the states where Northeast Public Radio is heard, the program airs at 3 p.m. each Friday, and is rebroadcast at 6 p.m. Sunday. You can tune in live, too, at www.wamc.org. It has been called “a half-hour of talk about finding and telling the truth.” It’s often worth your time!
THANK YOU. NOW, LEARN TO WRITE OP-EDS
Thanks for reading The Upstate American, and for supporting this work that explores *our common ground, this great land.” And if you’d like to learn how to write opinion essays — for newspapers, audio or digital platforms — check out the live class Rex co-teaches, that is offered by The Memoir Project. Click below for information. Our first class of 2024 is coming up on Wednesday, March 20, at 5:30 p.m. Eastern. Lots of our students have been well published — and you can be, too. Join us!
-REX SMITH
A particularly fine piece. Thanks, Rex.
There seem to be many explanations for the rise of and support for MAGA, but there is really no making sense of it. It is a malignancy. It must be “treated” or it will spread.