The moment of fight or flight comes quickly

There is no time to freeze in the face of the dangers posed by the coming Trump administration

When a predator looms, the choice to stand still is not a good one. (Photo by Josh Felise on Unsplash)

Maybe I’ve told you about the time a wolf seemed to threaten my dog and me during our morning walk across an Upstate meadow, though I should say right upfront here that it wasn’t really a wolf, maybe, and I’m not totally proud of my response to the danger I perceived at that moment. Still, given what’s been going on in America since Election Day, it might be useful to reflect on the lesson I took from the wolf. Whether or not that’s what it was, I mean.

We lived pretty deep in the woods in those days, so it wasn’t unusual to encounter wildlife — deer and porcupines and opossums and such. Most non-human creatures avoid the bright light of day, though, which is why I was shocked on that morning jaunt with my Weimaraner to look across an open field and spot a wolf eyeing us from a little bluff. The dog seemed oblivious to the danger.

I was not. Indeed, in the context of the human fight-or-flight response, I did not waver: I spun around and ran — away from the open field and the wolf at its far end, that is, and toward what struck me as the nearest semblance of safety: a large tree with a sturdy, low-hanging branch. I leapt and hoisted myself up on the branch, then clung to the tree with all my might. It was only when I looked back and saw the wolf beginning to lope toward me that I remembered my sweet dog, who was right there, too, looking up at me from the base of the tree, tail wagging.

This would not do: I could not let my dog’s loyalty put her at risk of a wolf attack. So I dropped down from the branch and took off again, my pup eagerly following as we ran toward home. That’s when it hit me, with the kind of clarity that is sometimes inspired by moments of fear: If I looked straight ahead as I ran, there seemed to be no threat at all. In fact, I grew less fearful as I ran with the house in view. Home looked just as it did on any other day, after all. If things seemed so normal nearby, what danger could I be facing, really?

Once the dog and I got into the house, there was no sign of the wolf outside, and I began to calm down. I tried to report the sighting to state wildlife officials, and got a guy on the phone who told me that I was probably mistaken, since wolves were pretty much eradicated hereabouts at the end of the 19^th century. Neighbors who had lived in the woods longer than I had said that I had probably seen a coyote. They’re fairly sociable creatures, so our morning coyote had likely run toward us out of curiosity.

The more I thought about it, though, what struck me as odd was how easily I had put the wolf out of mind once home came into view — almost as though I felt protection in merely the perception of normalcy. If I had in fact been pursued by a wolf, that delusion could have been my undoing, because wolves can run at more than 35 miles per hour while chasing prey. Calming your nerves is a good objective, I suppose, unless you’re about to be run down by a fast-moving threat.

Which seems to be something like what’s happening now in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election victory. A lot of us see danger on the horizon, alongside plenty of evidence that it’s a lot more real than the risk I faced that spring morning from whatever that canine critter was. But we’d rather imagine everything will turn out all right. So we’re facing reality with a heavy dose of passivity.

It's understandable. We are tired of the outrages that Donald Trump has presented almost every day during the nine years that he has been a candidate or an officeholder. Even if we haven’t been personally involved in campaigns, many of us are exhausted by the psychic toll of his malevolence. We were crushed that 50.1 percent of the nation’s voters supported him at the polls this month — which was not, by the way, a “massive landslide victory,” as Trump called it, with echoes from his Fox News cheerleaders. We are heartbroken that our fellow citizens disregarded the chaos and ineptitude of his first term, the amoral behavior he routinely displays and his clear intention of upending the democratic norms that have served America since 1789.

Besides, we hear some folks say, the nation survived four prior years of Trump in the White House, so just take it easy, because we can do it again. How much worse can it be?

Much worse, in fact. A lot has rightly been made of the fact that most of the guardrails that prevented Trump from imposing his worst impulses on the country eight years ago are now gone: Few Republicans who might challenge Trump remain in Congress now, and he no longer tolerates anybody in his orbit unwilling to bend to his whims, which means his administration will lack expertise and independent thought. The Republican Party structure is wholly in his control, and his team has a plan of radical attack on the whole of government. Trump is even more unstable and angrier than he was in 2016, his grip on reality perhaps diminished by age, and he is intent on avenging what he perceives as mistreatment by his political foes.

Importantly, the fact-based media’s capacity to function as a watchdog has been upended over the past eight years. Amid Trump’s incessant attacks on honest journalism and a steady diet of misinformation fed by a splintered media ecosystem, the audience for journalism that could hold a dishonest administration to account is now diminished. Who will pay attention now to the sort of reporting that long enforced democratic norms by spotlighting cynical and unethical public behavior?

It’s not surprising that Trump’s supporters aren’t inclined to care about reality-based reporting, but it is disconcerting that many who aren’t his fans almost seem as ready to give him a pass. Viewership of both CNN and MSNBC has been down in the days since the election, while Fox’s numbers have gone up. Those are among the data points suggesting “that the post-election progressive ferment that in 2016 gave us the resistance is going to be a lot quieter this time,” as Michael Schaffer wrote in Politico this week.

On the day after Trump was inaugurated in 2017, the Women’s March on Washington drew perhaps a half million people and inspired similar demonstrations globally: Nationwide, up to 5.2 million people marched to protest Trump that day in more than 400 cities, along with similar protests in 80 other countries. There is no indication that protests of that scale are likely this year. “Instead of tuning in, the audiences that fueled the post-2016 resistance are checking out,” Schaffer wrote.

It is hard to square that declining interest with the reality of the Trump administration that is emerging, and which you might think would prompt even more outrage: the infamous anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. taking over the massive government health infrastructure; the Fox News propagandist Pete Hegseth, telegenic but utterly inexperienced in leadership, poised to take charge of the world’s most massive military force; the radical right-wing politician Matt Gaetz pegged to become attorney general, despite being credibly accused of sexual misconduct and having a slender legal career that spans seven cases in Okaloosa County, Fla., including two clients who had speeding tickets.

The fight-or-flight response — sometimes called hyperarousal — is a physical reaction to fear that helped our prehistoric ancestors survive the perils of their dangerous lives. Hormones released by our autonomous nervous system trigger instantaneous physical changes, including muscle tightness and tunnel vision. The adrenaline release, in particular, makes us stronger and faster than we might ordinarily imagine ourselves, and even braver.

In the face of a threat, then, we are prepared to flee or to protect. Because most of us lead lives in peaceful communities, we are rarely triggered to fight-or-flight by physical threats. Rather, the fight-or-flight experience comes to us in the face of emotional stress, such as we might encounter at work or in social settings. We may feel our heart pound when we’re challenged or our face flush when we’re angry.

In those situations, there’s an instant before fight-or-flight kicks in, which is sometimes called the freeze response. It is the moment when we are poised to react, but awaiting a decision as to what’s appropriate. In many circumstances, the freeze is a useful opportunity to weigh our options and pursue a reasonable course. Some experts, in fact, say we ought to more accurately label the whole phenomenon as the freeze-fight-flight response.

As real as that freeze is, though, we usually can’t let it go on too long. If, say, a truck is hurtling toward us or a gunman bursts into a room, our very survival may depend upon not remaining frozen.

Perhaps that is where many of us are sitting just now as we begin to absorb the real danger of the impending second Trump administration. It’s understandable that we’d feel a bit stunned, frozen from a quick response by the onslaught of signs that the four years ahead will, in fact, be as damaging to our democracy as our worst fears had suggested. We were so recently absorbed in a campaign, and its failure plunges us back into a reality we had dared to imagine might not also be our future.  

And there’s comfort in some of the normalcy that we see. Republican members of the Senate have elected a new leader, the House is preparing to take up a spending plan and the president-elect is announcing the names of those he will nominate for top roles in the government. We can almost imagine that all of this is simply the way things go in America.

But there’s nothing normal about the presidency that now looms and the threat it presents to both the everyday lives of millions of people and the prospects for democracy’s survival in both America and worldwide. This is no time for us to linger in the freeze response. We don’t have the luxury of succumbing to weariness, and we can’t run home to safety. This is the reality of our home, and it really is a wolf this time. In whatever way we can, we need to stand and fight.

---

---

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:

• Hammond, La. (Shreveport Times, shreveporttimes.com)

• Mansfield, Ohio (Mansfield News-Journal, mansfieldnewsjournal.com)

• Augusta, Ga. (Augusta Chronicle, augustachronicle.com)

• Pratt, Kan. (The Hutchinson News, hutchnews.com)

NOTE: The complete “Newsclips from the Upstates” section, and The Upstate American Midweek Extra Edition, which is sent to email boxes most Wednesdays, are available only to paid subscribers. Thanks for your support!

LOUISIANA

Unclaimed cake draws viral audience

If you order an expensive custom-made product, you ought to pay for it — right? Presley Bo Tyler reports in the Shreveport Times that a Hammond bakery customer learned that the hard way after failing to pick up or finish paying for a $77 custom-made cake. Baker Abi Caswell had collected a $25 deposit, but when the customer left the cake and refused to pay for the finished product, Caswell posted her complaint about the non-payment on TikTok — where it got 7.3 million views, thanks to spreading by some big-audience accounts, including NBC’s Today show.

OHIO

Warnings issued for threat posed by deer on highways

From October to January, deer are rutting — that is, it’s their mating season — so they’re more likely to be moving around in places where they’re not ordinarily found, and paying less attention to their surroundings. Zach Tuggle reports in the Mansfield News-Journal that the Ohio Highway Patrol is warning motorists to keep an eye on the road these days because of the danger: Over the past five years, there have been almost 110,000 deer-related crashes in Ohio, causing 45 deaths. The danger is greatest around dawn and dusk, because that’s when deer are more often on the move.

GEORGIA

Survey reveals the most valued work in the state

What profession to residents of Georgia value most? Perhaps teachers, or nurses? No, Vanessa Countryman reports in the Augusta Chronicle that a survey by Careerminds, an outplacement agency, found that grocery store workers are the top jobs in the minds of Georgians. Careerminds polled all he states, and they got a different result nationwide: The top three most-valued jobs, according to the survey of 3,000 Americans, are postal workers, followed by teachers, nurses and caregivers. Grocery workers were 10th on the national list.

KANSAS

Agricultural pollution imperils local water supply

The central Kansas community of Pratt (pop. 6,500) has lost one-fourth of its water supply as a result of nitrate pollution, reports Celia Llopis-Jensen of the nonprofit Kansas News Service. Nitrate reaches waterways and groundwater from sources like feedlots, farm fertilizers and leaky septic tanks. It is a problem of growing frequency in mid-America, where much of the soil is sandy, making for especially permeable ground, meaning the pollution reaches underground sources more quickly; sandy soil also doesn’t clean pollution as effectively as clay and humus soils. Kansas State scientists in recent years have found wells in the region containing four or five times more nitrate than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe to drink. Kansas is inundated with requests for state aid from communities facing either dwindling water supplies or water quality problems, Llopis-Jensen reports; the Kansas Water Office is considering 277 applications this year, seeking $236.3 million, compared to the $27 million available.

---

DOWNLOAD OR LISTEN NOW

MORE FROM THE UPSTATE AMERICAN

IF YOU’D LIKE TO HEAR MORE from Rex Smith, 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 seven 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, or get the podcast there. It has been called “a half-hour of talk about finding and telling the truth.”

---

NEXT, LEARN TO WRITE OP-EDS

If you’d like to learn how to write opinion essays — for newspapers, audio or digital platforms — check out the live 90-minute class that Rex co-teaches that is offered by Marion Roach Smith’s global platform for writing instruction, The Memoir Project. Click below for information on our upcoming schedule of classes.

Our next class is Wednesday, Nov. 20, at 11:30 a.m. Eastern.

Lots of our students have been well published — and you can be, too!

---

THANK YOU for reading The Upstate American, and for joining us in the conversation about *our common ground, this great country. I hope you’ll join us again next week — or send a message with ideas you’d like to see us address.

-REX SMITH