For years, my girlfriend, Suzanne, has enjoyed me reading to her. She’s Swiss and she says she likes my Southern voice. A history of the Comanche in Central Texas, Ukraine, chicken recipes, excerpts from “The 1619 Project,” a tropical fruit I’ve never heard of … it’s a random choice of stories, the product of a wandering liberal arts education, I guess. There is an intimacy, scrolling early mornings through The New York Times or evenings with bourbon and book talk, that we treasure.
Lately, though, our reading time has become dark. New York Times headlines have turned into a litany of political absurdity, lies and betrayal. Reading aloud the words and fulminations of this president is like walking knee-deep in sewage. Former Arkansas Times columnist and author Gene Lyons recently retired, saying that in the limited time he had left on Earth, he was done thinking about Donald Trump.
A few months ago, Suzanne and I rented a vacation house for a few days surrounded by green and purple mountains, long, deserted beaches and a multicolored sea. It was pure tranquility. Yet every day I would open my phone and begin to recite aloud the utterances and actions of unserious sycophants strutting and bellowing across the national stage. One morning we looked at one another and I asked, “Why are we doing this?”
Now I read the paper and turn on NPR out of a sense of duty, not because I expect to be inspired or lifted up. It’s like being an Arkansas Democrat: You vote because you are a citizen, not because you expect anything good to come of it.
Several weeks ago our country, along with North Korea, Belarus and Russia, voted against a UN resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Then the president attacked the Ukrainian president during their meeting at the White House, blaming Ukrainians for Russia’s invasion of their country. Then JD Vance, with all the gravitas of a barking chihuahua, went after Zelensky. At that point, Brian Glenn, a reporter for the fringe TV outlet Real America’s Voice, demanded to know if Zelensky owned a suit. The place had gone batshit. My country has lost its moorings and no one will stand up.
I keep my dad’s funeral flag folded on the mantle in my living room. The VA gave it to us at his funeral in recognition of his service during World War II. He didn’t put up with bullies or wannabe dictators; he had seen more than his share. That morning the White House room was full of bullies and dictators, but on the American side this time.
I live in Trumpland in northern Pulaski County and pass several blue Trump flags on Batesville Pike every day on my way to work. Most of my neighbors support Trump but, for the most part, we are respectful and civil. I don’t want to descend into crankdom. But the idea we were buddying up to a man like Putin stank of betrayal and treason. I felt my dad was with me when I unfolded his flag, went out to the street and hung it upside down, fastened with zip ties to our big farm gate. There it hung for the next three weeks until I noticed mud starting to splatter and took it down for cleaning.
I am old enough to remember Orval Faubus, the Capital Citizens’ Council and the raft of misogynistic bigots (all Southern Democrats) that populated our Legislature in the ’50s and ’60s. I also watched as our state transitioned to Rockefeller, Bumpers, Pryor and Clinton. The pendulum does swing and I believe this will happen again, both in Arkansas and America. Eventually, I hope, the American people will have had enough of Trump’s stupid economic policies, his tariffs, his scapegoating, his narcissism, his opportunistic othering of immigrants, gay people and any other helpless group that catches his eye. Eventually, Trump will take his rightful place alongside Joseph McCarthy, and our country will awake, as from a long sleep. And if I am still here, I will go back to reading to Suzanne in the mornings and evenings, never to think of Trump again.
