Ok, Doomer
Some thoughts on the benefits of hopelessness
This is an essay about the movie Civil War.
Over the last couple of years, I have lost the will to pundit.1 I don’t enjoy gaming out what politicians should do or how this event or that even will land with voters. I don’t know if I remain an expert on American politics.2 But I know I am an expert on hopelessness – and that makes me an expert on politics right now.
In the days after Biden’s disastrous debate, it was “doomerism” and you could hardly swing an “In this house” yard sign without hitting a Democrat fretting with only mild humor over “camps.” Today, mainstream media engages in ostentatious both-siderism bemoaning “political violence.”
The paranoid right has shaken that set of keys in front of its followers for decades. They have had success in instigating violence3 because they always frame attacks as defense. No assassination has been attempted because that side thought they were winning.
That’s why Democratic candidate fear-mongering over “threats to democracy” ring false to anyone paying attention. Democracy is an incomplete project in the United States and those fighting for it are not facing “unprecedented” obstacles, the obstacles are merely more obvious to those not engaged in the fight.
“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed,” applies to -topias both u- and dys-.
I sound like a scold; what I want to do is welcome the newly doom-pilled to this disconsolate place. In Alcoholics Anonymous, we call it “the gift of desperation.” Only the truly hopeless are willing to truly change.
I’ve been sober for a good long while. Recovery hasn’t insulated me from hopelessness. It’s taken me a decade to be grateful for that. To thank God I continue to hit bottoms that have nothing to do with using drugs or booze. My most recent lowest points in my life pierced me so deeply because I was sober. Without hopelessness I would have kept on going the way I was going forever and ever and ever.
I sometimes have felt shame about the darkness around me. What do I have to be hopeless about? This country was built to give me chance after chance after chance.4 And that shame is myopic, recursive. Hopelessness always is. Even if you glance at the situation of others, despair always returns you to looking in the mirror.
I have been able to break that cycle by holding for dear life to a central truth -- the abyss grabs at the heels of those with both more and less than I have.* My way forward is to link arms with everyone else at risk (especially but not limited to those at more risk than me) rather than attempting to climb out on my own.
Every day that I can swerve around thinking of myself as alone in my struggle is a day slightly better than a day I fall into loneliness and isolation. You may think I’m talking about mental health here and I am, but identifying as a part of a community is also the most powerful political project one can ever undertake.
After several years of dipping in and out of mental health crises, last January I examined my hopelessness. Really bathed in it. Then, a miracle happened. Recognizing how dismal the future appears might be the true first step. But I promise you that there’s something inside you that shines.
For me, all I needed to do with be there with my breath. There it was. I was still breathing. Maybe that’s a small thing to you; but if I was still breathing then how could I give up? I wasn’t dead yet. No matter how bleak tomorrow might be, I have a reserve inside me to take an action toward change tomorrow.
I had to start as small as possible, though it was one of the biggest challenges. I found something to look forward to. Something I knew I could count on being there for me, preferably in the morning because mornings could be the worst part of the day. Before my eyes opened, I’d start thinking of all the possible failures and disappointments I faced. You’d stay in bed, too.
But then again, there’s coffee. That first cup. Dark, rich, bitter and smooth all at once. When the mental darkness overwhelmed me at dawn, I thought about the black brew ahead.
That’s one piece of advice to anyone paralyzed by dread. Just find a thing that won’t let you down and then enjoy the fuck out of it.
Then, I took that single erg of power in me and did something for other people. I made coffee (joy-bringing!) for my 12-step meeting. I volunteered to read one of the opening readings.
Energy kindled, slowly. I took time off when I needed to. Still, I volunteered for a jail diversion program. I took a workshop on practical support for reproductive justice. I started going to church.
I’m not recommending those specific actions. I’m just saying that those are the things started to pull me out of the deepest depression of my life (not the only things, but they gave me the scaffolding for more).
We are at a similar place at a county. Not the deepest, darkest time – it is actually not too hard to find darker times -- but pretty fucking desolate. And you know what will make it worse? Not taking in how bad it is. What will make it worse is if the most comfortable among us don’t feel hopeless. If you don’t let it sink in. Stick with hopelessness until it’s absolutely unbearable.
Acting as a community is the secret of those who have struggled the longest and the hardest against true repression. It’s how they’ve kept struggling. The people I know who have survived the most are always the people who refuse to continue forward alone.
Because I’m still a lot more politically connected than a lot of civilians (and because they’re feeling that desperation I’ve been writing about), friends and family in Texas often ask me “what I can do.” I suspect they want me to connect them with a campaign.
Instead, I tell them about what has helped me out my personal darkness. Taking food to the Austin Free Fridge project. I keep a little folding money in my car (fives, mostly) to give to those panhandling at stoplights -- and I look them in the eye and say “hope you have a good day” when I do it.5 Austin Mutual Aid has Google doc sign-ups for taking supplies to people whenever the weather gets extreme.6 I tell them volunteer at the Austin Animal Center or knock on their neighbor’s door during one of our many heat emergencies. Vote, sure. Yes, vote, sign up to get out the vote. But get out of the fucking house and connect with people somehow because, you know what, yes, Trump may win and if he does win then we cannot afford to let you get lost in the darkness or, worse, think you don’t really need help.
Especially if Trump wins (and also as long as neo-liberals dominate the Democratic party), the government social safety net will continue to fail. Knowing how to give support to others will save you and the country.
We tend to forget that the politician who promised us hope put it alongside “change.” Or, at least, we forget that both “hope” and “change” are more than promises. They are commands. Like all the best promises, hope and change (and love and cherish, trust and faith and freedom and liberty) are not just feelings or states of being, they are actions. They’re also only meaningful if you undertake them with someone else.
Hopelessness can community cannot exist in the same heart for very long.
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I wrote this piece about the debate and I think you’ll see it’s a lot more about my personal disappointment than “how it will play.” A friend complimented me on how it felt “sincere” and, hey, that’s the only kind of piece this ex-Wonkette can write anymore.
The handful of times I’ve been on TV in this election cycle, I’ve tried to say that we -- the ones sitting there talking about the issue -- are, in fact, voters and as well. We can speak to how the event or issue lands with us or, better yet, our expertise can help voters figure out what an issue means for them. And because we’re on television, the people watching will take their cues from what we say. The other thing I try to do when I’m on TV lately is bring every question around to the threat Trump poses to reproductive rights. Is Trump a threat to democracy? He sure is a threat to abortion rights! Will he pick Nikki Haley for VP? She sure has a terrible record on abortion rights! Does Trump’s rhetoric put people off? Well, he dodges the question of abortion rights, because he knows that will put people off. I fear that MSNBC is getting tired of me. I still think, post-assassination attempt, Democrats can win on making this a referendum on reproductive rights.
Against both politicians and everyday citizens.
I wrote about this in my essay about national trauma. When well-meaning folks minimize their pain, it’s a form of disconnecting. You can be aware of different circumstances without clinging to difference. AA is the largest, longest-running anarchist mutual aid organization in the world; one reason it works is that it recognizes no distinction between a rich person’s disease and that of someone living on the street. In my observations, it’s also the rich folks that have the most trouble getting sober. Maybe because they have the longest journey to hopelessness.