A Farewell to Decency?

In the past, I've often wished that I kept a sober record of the zeitgeist at particular political stages in time, so that it's easier to separate out what happened when and why we felt what and when what changed.

Despite the needless complexity of that last sentence, I think I'll begin straightforwardly enough with President Obama's final week, ending in President Trump's inauguration. I was blissfully uninformed the entire week, busy with work and also basking in the crepuscular glow of the last days of what felt like if not a golden era, at least a fair silver or brazen one. Then, during the Friday company meeting, an American colleague informed us with what I thought was lurid cheer that the inauguration was taking place; another, who had taken pains to vote against a certain presidential candidate, had watched part of it but couldn't — if I remember correctly — endure her new president's speech. It sounds almost hyperbolical to say so, but it is touching how dignified and deep the grief and sense of responsibility of some of my American colleagues are about the state of politics in their country — not party politics, but real feeling. That weekend there was much dismay amongst the lefties whom I follow on Twitter about the barely conciliatory spirit of the new president's inaugural address, and specifically also dismay about the adoption of the slogan 'America First,' which had been used to justify exclusionist policies during the Nazi era.

I didn't think it was fair to want a head of government to fail. After thinking that he was a terrible person in terms of his treatment of his fellow human beings, whether family or no relations to him at all — I also thought that this that was no guarantee that he would be a bad president. But I had no enthusiasm for his impending regime, and felt that it was best not to immerse myself in ungratifying details.

But after thinking about it on Friday evening, on Saturday morning I went to the Women's March on Washington sister demonstration at the Brandenburger Tor in solidarity with American protestors. For one thing I wanted to help prove that even though President Trump himself was endorsed for the presidency by a majority of the Electoral College, not everyone endorses his style of sexist behaviour or his opinions. But while the others — I felt quite shy — shouted slogans like 'Show me a feminist! — I am a feminist!', I was also happy with messages at the protest that were about broader social justice and rights issues like, 'No hate; no fear; immigrants are welcome here," which were as significant for Germany as they can be to the United States. Human Rights Watch was also there.

There were roughly 500 people there, I read on the news — over 2,000 people officially attended it per the Facebook page — and while there were also French accents and doubtless German people there (like me, I suppose), many protestors were by their accents American; and after all the Democrats Abroad organized the event. There were lights on in two or three rooms in the American Embassy but otherwise no evidence that anyone was 'at home,' a pair of police officers in dark blue standing at the bollards in what was otherwise pretty much a dead zone, and few tourists photographing the protest or the Brandenburger Tor, and then the din of music from a stage at the other side of the Tor that was probably set up for the demonstration against 'big agriculture' in Germany that also took place that day. The tractor cavalcade that was organized for that demonstration incidentally also made me a bit later than I already was to the protest.

It is hard to exaggerate how happy I felt as I came home and gradually read about the enormous protests in London and in the United States as they happened, and that they were all pretty much as free from rancour and as festive as the one I had joined. The inertia and self-doubt and repression of disagreement that I felt had to be overcome during the Iraq War and the Bush years were entirely absent. I felt that any reasonably decent person across the mainstream political spectrum would feel that aspects of the Trump presidency needed protesting against.

In the next week, after the early attempts of Congress to dismantle the Affordable Care Act that tried to make health care available to most Americans, etc. it was the most painful to read about the ban on refugees and partial ban on immigrants that were signed on Friday. I happened to be reading news on Twitter as the Customs and Border Patrol began to apply it. I was on the verge of tears when it became clear what the effects were. I remember feeling unhappy at borders when I was a child, when the customs officials were being apparently disagreeable and pedantic about the tiniest things, when we were tired and bored and tense, and being afraid of being separated from one home or the other. The idea of leaving Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, the Sudan, Somalia, or Yemen, and feeling the same thing in an acuter way, was awful. Then the taxi driver's union in New York City released its statement mentioning that policies like this lead to violent attacks on their employees. Then I did feel a sense of hopelessness.

But I've resolved during this presidency to read in detail about issues and also read more longer-form news, like the PBS News Hour clips on YouTube. As a result, I also kept track of official reactions to the Ban — even Republican senators sent out weak announcements at least nitpicking the Muslim Ban, and the Democratic establishment and experienced public officials as well as groups like the ACLU have expressed such effective opposition. I think, in fact, that some Republicans should receive more credit than they have been getting. But what cheered me the most were the anti-Trump administration protests in Britain; and — because I am childish — the public's online petition to refuse President Trump the formalities of a state visit to the UK because he was 'too misogynistic and vulgar,' which would 'embarrass the Queen.'

Brexit is (I think) a terrible event, too — an example of the movements that led to the right-wing meeting in Koblenz on the weekend of the Women's March, and bound to bring harm especially to politically and economically vulnerable people. Thanks perhaps to these anti-Trump administration protests, the apparent resurgence of the protesting ethos in Britain (which was changed, I felt, into impotent shock after the result of the referendum) was also bearing fruit in the House of Commons, in the debate on whether to begin using Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to leave the EU.

I watched a few parliamentarians speak on Thursday. While 'remainer' legislators who were representing 'remainer' constituencies attempted to justify their 'yes' vote using their idea of democracy — i.e. voting along the lines of a slender majority — this argument failed to fill me with thrilling conviction. But then, after reading Polly Toynbee's praise on the Guardian's website, I watched the former Justice Minister Ken Clarke's speech. I thought his speech had a depth of emotional interest, reflected political experience, and wealth of parliamentarian tradition, together with his old-fashioned though jovial statesmanliness of air, that 'blew my socks off.' And that praise is although I had no particular or high opinion of him beforehand.

So I alternate between feelings of optimism and bearing an influence, and of despair and a complete lack of hope.

But the quandary of where to help still puzzles me. I want to throw more money at things, but at present I have to budget it.