The Pain of Trump and the Fact of Hypocrisy

Many of us have suffered anxiety and anger, even depression. We've taken it personally. I have a theory about this that I'm gonna air for the sake of airing it. My own reaction to the election was fairly cynical I guess - this is what you get when you're apathetic, like George W. before Trump. Having grown up far from the glare and glamor of the coasts, I have a fairly empathetic understanding of just how BIG and WHITE and CONSERVATIVE is the United States of America. It is difficult to comprehend when you live in Central Brooklyn, where we fight each other over relatively minor issues like "how affordable is affordable housing" and it's taken for granted that we agree that the police over-extend their power and that we incarcerate WAY too many young men of color and that LGBT rights are human rights and climate change and on and on.

But here's what I think may be at the root of the very personal distress that we feel at the core of our being. And it IS personal, not just political. It's called...hypocrisy.

We're hypocrites, many of us. Like:

• We claim to be unified against climate change but we own cars, sometimes BIG cars, and we air condition like penguins would, and practically horde plastics and some own second homes outfitted with twice the number of "things," many that are frankly superfluous, and we use water with abandon and so much more. A few of us ride bicycles, and maybe feel a bit superior? Many of us do it because we can't afford a car and parking is a bitch, and it's a forced fitness program for our lardy asses. Frankly almost all the parents I know own cars anyway, and ride bikes only occasionally.
• We claim solidarity with worker's rights, but buy from Amazon and Uniqlo and Apple and use Uber and even Target and other companies that have actively eroded progress and depressed pay and living standards all the while forcing manufacturers to cut costs and extract greater work for less pay from foreign workers who suffer for our leisure, and we ceaselessly shop for the best bargains just to maintain our own standards of living, complaining about the rich while hording for ourselves.
• We don't really give much to charity, let's be honest here.
• We live segregated lives in integrated cities, and send our kids to segregated schools 
• We say we're for affordable housing, but we won't budge on our quality of life or allow the building of new housing near us. 
• We claim to be for housing justice, but we move into poor neighborhoods and demand services and utilize such services that actively help price people and businesses out
• We vote the "right" way but never show up to local meetings and events that would create true partnerships between elected officials and the communities they serve
• We do precious little to understand the people we claim we want to protect
• We check our phones constantly, and somehow convince ourselves that's a political act
• We argue the merits of Sanders vs Clinton, rather than working for voting rights in states where the votes really matter, regardless of whom they end up voting for, it being their choice after all
• We argue against White Privelege, all the while using it to our advantage without so much as a blush, or even realizing it
• We think of Trump as someone else's fault - media, FBI, Putin, social media, fake news, bigots...anyone but us.

I could go on and on.

In essence, I know precious few who live their convictions. When I meet them and talk to them, I see and hear a version of myself that could be, but isn't. Sometimes their humility is awe-inspiring. Sometimes they're just dogged and tough and hard-to-like. But they don't live like hypocrites. And perhaps, when they lie awake at night, they don't take the fact of Trump so personally. They wake up in the morning, to once again wear the mantle of resistance and progress.

Just a hunch.