In one of my classes a few weeks ago, we were reading Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. About a third of the way through the novel, Kundera mentions Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. I described the play to my students, who all nodded (yes, totalitarianism; yes, much of Europe in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s)—but it seemed far away to them. Now it’s two weeks later. The rhinoceroses are us.
*
He thought he saw a Slew of Forecasts,
None of them correct:
He looked again, and found it was
The President-Elect.
“I’m gonna need some time,” he said—
And sat down to reflect.
*
The University of Michigan’s Division of Public Safety and Security sent out several “Crime Alert” emails in the days following the election:
Summary: As told to the Ann Arbor Police, a student was approached by an unknown man, who demanded she remove her hijab or he would set her on fire with a lighter. She complied and left the area. The Ann Arbor Police are actively investigating.
Summary: As told to the Ann Arbor Police, a student pedestrian was approached by two men, who yelled at her about being in America, made reference to religion and then pushed her down a hill.
So here we are, making America great again, safe again. With muscle. With fire.
*
Some days it seems that Trump has destroyed everything, even small talk. “When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke?”
(And now we don’t even have Bob Dylan’s public acceptance of the Nobel Prize in Literature to look forward to.)
*
If you can read about that lighter-wielding assailant and not feel at least a little bit sickened, I think there’s something wrong with you. The wrong thing can be fixed; it can be fixed by examining something that you hadn’t previously been encouraged to examine. But it’s not OK, and it can’t be excused for the sake of unity, for the sake of “moving forward” (which would be moving backward). We don’t have to give Trump, or Steve Bannon, a chance.
*
He thought he saw the Sort of Men
He’d always Feared or Hated:
He looked again, and found it was
Eight Years, obliterated.
“It’s Sessions . . . Flynn . . . it’s everyone
Who—.” Silence, then. We waited.
*
What’s helped, in these first couple of weeks? The movie Moonlight. The courageous words of nearly all of my students. Dave Chappelle’s SNL monologue. Laura Maylene Walter’s “Hers” (on this blog). Masha Gessen’s “Autocracy: Rules for Survival” (on NYR Daily). The cast of Hamilton, speaking truth to rising power.
Also: hearing that donations to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU have skyrocketed.
*
But then I pause over this line from Rhinoceros: “We must get back to primeval integrity.” Wait for the echo; it’ll come.
*
Anu Garg has been doing yeoman’s work with A.Word.A.Day since the election. He’s given us kakistocracy, “government by the least qualified or worst persons”; coulrophobia, “the fear of clowns”; and boodler, “someone involved in bribery or corruption.” He’s offered this necessary quote from the 18th c. Irish composer and playwright Kane O’Hara: “Remember, when the judgment’s weak, the prejudice is strong.”
*
And we lost Leonard Cohen! And Mose Allison! I don’t want it darker; November’s been dark enough. But yes, please try to make it rhyme.