My response to yesterday’s email:

I appreciate these words, and the better part of me maintains a belief in human nature.  The last thing I would ever want to do is pull further on these dark threads, only to reveal an abyss beneath. [now, having completed this email, I apologize for doing just that, though.]

I think we all/each make choices about whom to surround ourselves with, and in those choices we promote the values we want to see and live in our society.  We create our own little society in the choices of relationships, I think.  For whatever reason, I learned and hold dear liberal, broad-minded values; and choose our self-built societies accordingly.  I am proud of the little world I have built around me, or found myself in.  

But, of course, I know that this my world is one of my building and choosing.  The solace I held in knowing that it was the electoral college’s flaws (flaws in the system), rather than the popular vote count—i.e., Bush, Trump, etc.—was at least a little comfort.  This election makes clear to me that the flaw is more than in the system, it’s the majority’s will.  By a significant margin, we are the minority in what will be an increasingly unchecked administration that needn’t conceal its corruption or self-serving motivations.  I can’t even allow the concession that people are actually doing what they think is right for the country, and I just disagree; the motivations are so obviously about Us vs. Them; about padding “our” pockets; about pulling back from the world’s politics.  The US has zero influence in making the world a better place, as we are no better than Germany in the early 30s, or Putin, Xi, or Orban now.  

I too believe in the long arc of history, but with people like Musk at the helm along with Steven Miller, Bannon, let alone Tucker Carlson, and those who preceded him—while the country discounts the words of those who have served in the room with Trump—I’m afraid the long arc will weather some very treacherous waters before finding land.  And I’m quite certain I will not see things improve in my lifetime.  The Supreme Court will surely move even further right, which will mean horrid things for our kids’ generation as they reach our current ages.  Truly, no one lives life without confronting injustice and evil, but what, exactly, represents those injustices and evils seems to really a matter of perspective.  The very relativist world that conservative thinking abhors has become the justification for identifying injustice and evil among those in the center and left.  There will be no signing ethics agreements required by the government for transition, because those are unjust; the Jan 6 convicts will be let go, because evil forces conspired against them; and on, ad nauseum.  And there will be no ethics on the Supreme Court, and most certainly ethics disappeared from the House and Senate years ago, if ever present at all.

I will continue to make the same choices about my circle of associations and relationships, even as I’m increasingly aware that in so choosing I am becoming ever more “isolationist” myself.  I will continue to speak out on issues that matter to me, even as I’m increasingly aware that I’m only making noise in an echo chamber.

We are a minority.  The country, and perhaps the world at large, simply doesn’t share our perspective of what is of value in life.  It seems that our human nature simply isn’t shared.  But we will continue, even if as a minority.

Well, I’m afraid I’ve revealed the abyss I’m feeling when I pull the threads.  But—and I’m not at all kidding here—I know that descending brings me joys, too, like playing around with sea lions, and making friends with octopuses.