This will be a bit of a ramble, but for some reason this feels like the forum for this sort of thing:
This election was hard on everyone. Really really hard. But, in all honesty, the hardest part of it for me personally was seeing many people that I know consider themselves to be Godly and ethical essentially choose to say that the current conditions are livable because they were very unlikely to be personally affected. Further, I was advised that my wife and I, as white relatively wealthy professionals, should essentially just hunker down as a "nation of two" and wait out the storm because we were very well situated for the next four years.
A couple points:
1. That description is objectively correct. The Madame and I are among those best situated to have nothing bad happen to us.
2. The description of "nation of two" was chosen purposely. The person who said this knows I am a particular admirer of Kurt Vonnegut. The phrase "nation of two" appears in his book "Mother Night" which is largely about someone who does work for the Nazis as a propagandist in an effort to preserve the only relationship that matters: the relationship with his wife. In his moral calculus all his actions are justified because only one nation matters: the nation of two.
This is an accurate description of the plot, but my friend totally misremembers the point of the book. Ultimately, by being complacent with the Nazis and serving their ends, the protagonist was one. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." The Nation of Two was a justification of a moral failing; not a proscription for how to live in times that call for real action and community engagement.
Seeking some way to connect with other people in town, my wife and I started attending the local unitarian church. Unitarians are gentle, angry liberal people. We were surprised to find the parking lot overflowing to the point that we had to walk down the street. Apparently we were not alone in seeking out some form of social action. The local unitarians have swollen in their ranks by 40% since the election. The church leaders have indicated that when they communicate with other liberal congregations, that similar growth is being experienced elsewhere. Notably, this reverses a multi decade trend of slow dwindling and die off. Unitarians have so little set doctrine and so little emphasis on recruitment that they really weren't doing much but dying off in the long run. Apparently the liberal congregations are referring to this cultural moment as the "Trump Bump."
This has been honestly very helpful because it's been the opposite experience of speaking with those who advised me to ride it out. Instead, the local congregation appears to be focused nearly entirely on bridging gaps in the community to make us better understand those who are different. They do some silly liberal things like hold workshops on white privilege (although when I look around it seems to me like they already have plenty of experience with it) but they do honestly productive things as well. We are attending prayers at the local Arizona mosque and sharing a meal with them this weekend by invitation of the local Islamic community. Getting to know these people is the best way to generating empathy with them.
They also appear to be fighting a small war with the local community. Banners in support of Black Lives Matter and Refugees have been repeatedly vandalized by people in the neighborhood. They just keep posting new banners next to signs offering to talk to the vandals about it with no hard feelings. For a place that has never mentioned Jesus once to me, they sure act Christ-like.
This is a board full of liberal disaffected ex-mormons. I am one of you as well. And there are many of us at my branch. If you ever miss the social aspect of it, but can't stand all the God stuff anymore, this is your solution. I certainly never would have expected that Trump, of all people, would be the person who would get me to go to church again. And if Trump is what reinvigorates liberal religion that has got to be the most unintended consequence of all time.
This election was hard on everyone. Really really hard. But, in all honesty, the hardest part of it for me personally was seeing many people that I know consider themselves to be Godly and ethical essentially choose to say that the current conditions are livable because they were very unlikely to be personally affected. Further, I was advised that my wife and I, as white relatively wealthy professionals, should essentially just hunker down as a "nation of two" and wait out the storm because we were very well situated for the next four years.
A couple points:
1. That description is objectively correct. The Madame and I are among those best situated to have nothing bad happen to us.
2. The description of "nation of two" was chosen purposely. The person who said this knows I am a particular admirer of Kurt Vonnegut. The phrase "nation of two" appears in his book "Mother Night" which is largely about someone who does work for the Nazis as a propagandist in an effort to preserve the only relationship that matters: the relationship with his wife. In his moral calculus all his actions are justified because only one nation matters: the nation of two.
This is an accurate description of the plot, but my friend totally misremembers the point of the book. Ultimately, by being complacent with the Nazis and serving their ends, the protagonist was one. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." The Nation of Two was a justification of a moral failing; not a proscription for how to live in times that call for real action and community engagement.
Seeking some way to connect with other people in town, my wife and I started attending the local unitarian church. Unitarians are gentle, angry liberal people. We were surprised to find the parking lot overflowing to the point that we had to walk down the street. Apparently we were not alone in seeking out some form of social action. The local unitarians have swollen in their ranks by 40% since the election. The church leaders have indicated that when they communicate with other liberal congregations, that similar growth is being experienced elsewhere. Notably, this reverses a multi decade trend of slow dwindling and die off. Unitarians have so little set doctrine and so little emphasis on recruitment that they really weren't doing much but dying off in the long run. Apparently the liberal congregations are referring to this cultural moment as the "Trump Bump."
This has been honestly very helpful because it's been the opposite experience of speaking with those who advised me to ride it out. Instead, the local congregation appears to be focused nearly entirely on bridging gaps in the community to make us better understand those who are different. They do some silly liberal things like hold workshops on white privilege (although when I look around it seems to me like they already have plenty of experience with it) but they do honestly productive things as well. We are attending prayers at the local Arizona mosque and sharing a meal with them this weekend by invitation of the local Islamic community. Getting to know these people is the best way to generating empathy with them.
They also appear to be fighting a small war with the local community. Banners in support of Black Lives Matter and Refugees have been repeatedly vandalized by people in the neighborhood. They just keep posting new banners next to signs offering to talk to the vandals about it with no hard feelings. For a place that has never mentioned Jesus once to me, they sure act Christ-like.
This is a board full of liberal disaffected ex-mormons. I am one of you as well. And there are many of us at my branch. If you ever miss the social aspect of it, but can't stand all the God stuff anymore, this is your solution. I certainly never would have expected that Trump, of all people, would be the person who would get me to go to church again. And if Trump is what reinvigorates liberal religion that has got to be the most unintended consequence of all time.
