Bitter Empathy

My friend Alan wrote this after the election of 2012:

"It's deeply saddening to realize that over 50% of voting Americans can look at the past four years and enthusiastically ask for four more years of the same.

Welcome to four more years of continued economic decline, political mistakes, foreign-policy disasters, and violations of individual rights. Brothers and sisters, YOU asked for it."

Here are some items for your consideration that I hope will help you get through the coming days:

• You don't know the future.  I know you have a strong feeling that the future will suck based on the suckage of last four years.  Still, stuff happens and your fear of what you think will happen could be unfounded. 
• You don't know what the Romney Administration would have done.  Your fear of the future is based on your perception of the past (and it could be entirely rational), but not even the smartest amongst us can really know what President Romney would have done with the economy, foreign relations, etc.  He may well have done much better than President Obama, but he may have done worse. 
• Republicans still control the House, the Supreme Court and countless other offices.  They might be down but they are a long way from out.  Conservatives will be back to fight again very soon.

The general lesson I have learned is that when faced with anxiety about the future, it is sometimes helpful to embrace doubt.

Now the bad news. I'm basing my advice on the rationalizations I used when President GW Bush was re-elected to his second term.  I was emotionally invested in the success of Senator Kerry and failure of President Bush, convinced that a second Bush term would mean disaster in economic conditions and foreign policy.  I clung to the above bullet points for those first few days after the election of 2004 and they did help me make it through those first few weeks after the election.

My fears were largely irrational, as fear often is.  I saw disaster for me and my family, death for many of my fellow humans and many threats to my values and faith.  As it turned out, my fears were realized in the economic meltdown of 2008 and the continuation of the Iraq War.  I was personally devastated by the 2008 financial crash.  I watched my country kill countless Iraqis and saw American servicemen killed and maimed in the process.  I hope your fears are not realized and you make it through the next few weeks without suffering too much anxiety.

Maybe you should start a blog and call it Buck Ofama.