I was hiking the Camino de Santiago with my husband (in a really rural part of Spain) when I found out via text message from a friend who carefully follows international politics that Trump had been shot. He was trying to get my reaction to the shooting. I asked "What shooting" and he was incredulous. Believe it or not, on a day when I am hiking 20 miles with a heavy bag on my back through the unshaded maseta of Spain, the last thing I have time for is to watch tv or read news about the US presidential election. In fact, the election had been wearing on me and the constant reports and opining in US, UK, Irish, German and Swedish media about Biden's apparent cognitive decline and election performance had been making me feel more and more down. It added to the feeling of hopelessness and frustration that had I had been feeling since the mounting movements online for people to just not vote for either party because not enough is being done to stop the attacks in Gaza. I see absolutely no good coming from a Trump presidency for me, my friends, my colleagues, my students, higher education, the country as a whole, Europe, much of the rest of the world, and the future of this country.
Hearing about the near miss did not make me feel any more hopeful. I don't believe assassination attempts on political leaders are good for democracy or a stable society. I also did not want Trump to be made a martyr.
I was on a late night boat cruise around the harbor of Alicante (my favorite Spanish city on the Mediterranean) when I found out that Biden had withdrawn from the election and was endorsing Harris. This happened when I checked my FB friends page (because I like looking at photos my friends share of their summer holidays even when I am on holiday) and came across a post by a work colleague thanking Biden for his service to the country. This led me to look up the news online. I was shocked and a little worried for Biden, but I also felt a kind of thrill. This was unexpected.
In June I had taken a full month off of social media because the discourse had been getting me down and setting off such feelings of doubt and hopelessness that I was struggling to think clearly or make plans for the future. There was too much rage, name calling, negativity, hopelessness and pain. Twitter in particular had become a difficult place to traverse because of this. It was almost impossible on my TL to escape people accusing each other of supporting genocide - academics had taken sides and were loudly and angry.
I have since seen a transformation since Harris and now Walz have begun campaigning. It is more joyful. It is more hopeful and it is more critical of all or nothing stance being taken by those who are arguing for people to not vote at all because neither the Democrats or Republicans are doing enough for Gaza. I understand the more organized arm of this is called the
Uncommitted National Movement but there also seem to be a good number of young people who are doing what young people do and that is to challenge power without perhaps understanding fully the nature of the system they are trying to overturn because they have not yet been given access to this system to know how it functions below the surface.
What has also been interesting is to read more about the fact that there is
evidence that some of the support for this movement is being engineered by Iran. This reminds me of the astroturfing carried out in the 2020 election and targeted both Trump supporters and BLM activists
(see above Figure 3 in this article in Nature). This might explain some of the very great outcry that this movement (and not other movements) has generated this election and some of the hopelessness and dismay I was feeling. Sewing confusion, chaos and hopelessness leading people to not vote is a deliberate strategy.
What I am enjoying now is the feeling of possibility that I did not have before and maybe even space for empathy. I have been reading up on and listening to interviews with Walz, who was a complete unknown to me. And the thing that stands out for me is his big heart and a can-do attitude. He and Harris are not fear-mongering or attacking. It makes me feel a little hopeful too and to want to dig within myself to do more and try harder and to not give into hopelessness and fear.
I'm going to hold on to this for as long as I can. It feels like a gift and I don't know what surprises are coming that might dim the light.
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