In these dismal days of , imperial , endless , and in my city, a hapless , I seem to be experiencing a strange and unaccustomed emotion: hope. How can that be? Maybe it바카라s because, like my poor San Francisco 49ers who have been 바카라rebuilding바카라 for the last two decades, I바카라m fortunate enough to be able to play the long game.
But what exactly is making me feel hopeful at the moment?
For one thing, we seem to have finally reached Peak Trump, and the reason why is important.
Mexicans rapists and drug dealers didn바카라t do it. Promising to bring back and commit assorted didn바카라t do it. Flirting with the and their little friend didn't do it. But an 11-year-old video tape of Trump about grabbing women 바카라by the pussy바카라 seems to have been the drop of water that finally cracked the dam and sent even stalwart Republican leaders a flood of public revulsion.
In the midst of the most frightening and depressing presidential election of my life, the reactions to this latest glimpse into the Mind of Trump have actually lifted my spirits. Not that many years ago, an like the one between Donald Trump and would hardly have been news. Sexual harassment was an expected part of the lives of working women 바카라 par for a Trump golf course. I remember, for instance, paging through my family바카라sNew Yorker magazines and coming across a about a lesson at a secretarial school. A businessman is chasing a woman around a desk as the teacher explains, 바카라Notice, class, how Angela circles, always keeping the desk between them...바카라
There you have it: the devaluation of women바카라s work (secretarial skills reduced to techniques for evading the boss바카라s advances), the trivialization of sexual predation, and in Angela바카라s knowing smile, admiration for the woman who keeps her sense of humor while defending her virtue.
What바카라s most surprising about the response to Trump바카라s hot-mic moment is the apparent national consensus that speaking 바카라 or even thinking 바카라 about sexual assault the way Trump did on this video is neither normal nor amusing. This shared assumption that women are not trophies for the taking marks an advance toward full personhood that we have achieved only in my lifetime. When you stop to think about it, it바카라s an extraordinary cultural shift. And once people figure out that women are, after all, human, it바카라s pretty hard to stuff that back into the bottle.
Of course, there are still a lot of men who have a hard time with the woman-human being equation. Paul Ryan, for example, to the Trump video release by opining that 바카라Women are to be championed and revered바카라 바카라 a view that suggests we are either helpless creatures to be saved by a 바카라champion바카라 or other-than-human creatures belonging on some Victorian pedestal.
Then There바카라s Hillary
In her first debate with Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton actually said the words 바카라.바카라 Never in our history has a mainstream presidential candidate described our country바카라s racial institutions in that kind of language. Indeed, one of the biggest political problems the movement for racial justice has faced in the post-Civil Rights era has been how to account for the fact that, absent legal segregation, people of color, and especially African Americans, remain disproportionately represented among the , the, and the . Institutional, or systemic, racism describes the mechanism at play.
Here바카라s what Clinton in that debate:
바카라And it바카라s just a fact that if you're a young African-American man and you do the same thing as a young white man, you are more likely to be arrested, charged, convicted, and incarcerated. So we've got to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system.바카라
She바카라s right of course. And she deserves credit for saying it, but it바카라s the analysis of groups like , the organizing skills of the young activists of , and the moral voice of older leaders like the of the North Carolina NAACP who created the atmosphere in which she had to say it.
We are, in other words, witnessing a sea change in how people in mainstream politics talk about racism. Of course, there바카라s been against Clinton바카라s rhetoric, but the idea that actual institutional structures exist that deeply constrain the lives of African Americans has now been admitted to the grown-ups바카라 table.
Black communities have long known that they, and especially their young men, are at risk of police violence. That바카라s why sooner or later so many black parents of every economic class have 바카라바카라 with their children about how to try to stay safe (or at least safer). But in the two years since the murder of by a , Black Lives Matter has focused national attention for the first time on the repeated deaths of unarmed black men and at the hands of those who are meant to protect and serve. Now, even the no longer treat such deaths as isolated incidents unworthy of coverage. Instead, it is recognized that they form a, and even presidential candidates have to respond to that pattern. That is a victory and it was almost beyond imagination even a few years ago. Of course, the real victory will come when police stop shooting unarmed people, but at least now the country generally admits that it happens.
Similarly, many of us on the left have long known that wages in this country began to in the mid-1970s. We바카라ve watched the minimum wage (once intended to be for a family바카라s 바카라breadwinner바카라) shrink to a poverty stipend. We바카라ve seen income and wealth inequality swell to the greatest levels since the of the nineteenth century. But it took the Occupy movement to remind us that the 99% could reclaim political power. It took organizations like and the , lifted by Bernie Sanders바카라s run for the Democratic nomination, to bring that discussion into the mainstream.
For the first time in years, the words 바카라working class바카라 have slipped back into public discourse. CNN now stories with headlines like 바카라Working class white men make less than they did in 1996.바카라 A few years ago, as far as anyone could tell from the mainstream media, we lived in a country populated by a vast, undifferentiated 바카라middle class,바카라 and a few wealthy or impoverished outliers. Now, both the Trump and Clinton campaigns have found that they must address the pain of working people. We may not agree with their proposed solutions, but they have to talk about it. That, too, is a change and a victory of sorts.
Wait! You Mean We Won Something?
For many years I바카라ve noticed that my corner of the political world, roughly the American left, has had a very hard time recognizing and claiming our victories. Maybe that바카라s because it바카라s cost us so much to understand all the ways in which the standard American narrative is a lie, to grasp how little the American Way 바카라 whatever may have believed 바카라 has had to do with truth and justice.
From birth, Americans normally swim in an ocean of heroic mythology about American exceptionalism, and for many of us it바카라s been difficult to make our way out of its riptides. So our knowledge has been hard-won. Figuring out that the United States is not the international defender of liberty we learned about in school wasn바카라t easy.
It took work to realize and accept, for instance, that our country routinely supported dictators and torturers. We opposed U.S. efforts to prop up strongmen like in the Philippines and in Chile, and called out the hypocrisy when the U.S. government was shocked! shocked! to discover what they actually were.
Having invested so much effort in recognizing the lies of the American exceptionalist narrative, we find it difficult to acknowledge when our government does something right.
The on climate, signed by 190 countries, this November 4th. That바카라s because on October 5th, the world met two key criteria: ratification by at least 55 of the signatory countries, and ratification by countries responsible for producing 55% of the planet바카라s greenhouse gases. It바카라s fair to say that, without the Obama administration, this agreement to confront the extinction-level threat that climate change represents would not have come into being. Like any compromise, it바카라s by no means a perfect accord, but it바카라s the best chance we바카라ve seen in a long time that the Earth will remain the habitable and welcoming place for human beings (among many other species) that it바카라s been these last tens of thousands of years. This victory belongs to environmental activists around the world, and we should claim it!
It바카라s almost as if, having worked so hard to understand the role and power of the United States on the world stage and of a ruling elite at home, we바카라ve imagined this country as a far greater powerhouse than it is. It바카라s almost as if recognizing any cracks in the edifice of American power might endanger that hard-won worldview. It바카라s almost as if the possibility that we can sometimes push our country to do something right, that our side can sometimes win, seems to rattle us. Faced with that disorienting possibility, I suspect it바카라s sometimes easier to believe that, while we must always fight the good fight, our adversary is too strong for us ever to expect victories.
On the domestic front many of us, both people of color and white Americans, have struggled to recognize our personal racial biases. We바카라ve likewise taken the time and effort to reexamine what we were taught about U.S. history so that we could grasp the enduring and shape-shifting longevity of . Knowing this history so well seems to make it harder for some of us to recognize and claim victories when they come. When, in front of 80 million Americans, Hillary Clinton that 바카라implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just [the] police,바카라 that is a victory, and we should take it in and savor it.
When President Obama responds to mass incarceration by the sentences of federal drug offenders, that is a victory, however modest. It took half a decade for the ideas in groundbreaking book to penetrate to a mass audience. Now, the country has finally begun to recognize what prison activists have been saying for years: there is something very wrong when the 바카라leader of the free world바카라 has the on the planet. An outrage that, a decade ago, was invisible to just about everyone except the affected communities and a small number of activists is now known to all. Our prisons are a national and international scandal and the spread of that knowledge 바카라 and the to about it 바카라 is also a victory, one worth celebrating, however provisionally.
Who바카라s Most Likely to Be Hopeful?
In the 1980s, I spent six months in Nicaragua바카라s war zones at a time when my government, the Reagan administration, was supporting the Contra armies against the Sandinista government. Together with many sectors of Nicaraguan society, the Sandinistas had thrown out the U.S.-supported dictator, Anastasio Somoza. Over and over I was struck by how living in the midst of war was like being stretched between two temporal realities.
In the morning, a Nicaraguan in the town of might help dig a communal refugio to shelter children from airplane attacks. In the afternoon, she might risk attack or kidnapping by the U.S.-backed Contras to plant trees that would take years to mature on mountains that had been clear-cut by American lumber companies during the dictatorship. You always had one eye on the present and the other on a better future.
The Nicaraguans I knew seemed eternally ready for a party under the worst conditions imaginable. One day, in the city of Estelí, I remember running into an American friend who told me this story: she바카라d been feeling bummed recently because the Contras had attacked a little town near where she was living and killed seven children. It seemed to her as if this miserable war would never end. The family with whom she was staying was going to a fiesta that night and asked her along.
바카라I don바카라t feel like it,바카라 she said. 바카라I바카라m too depressed.바카라
바카라You can afford to be depressed,바카라 they told her, 바카라because you바카라re going home soon. We are the ones who will still be stuck in the war, so we have to have hope for the future. We have to dance. Now, get dressed, we바카라re going to a party.바카라
What group in the United States is most optimistic about the future? Surprisingly, according to a recent , it바카라s not the billionaires among us, but poor African Americans. A on the poll suggests a number of reasons for this, and adds,
바카라[T]he optimism of black Americans 바카라 especially the poorest 바카라 is a reason to be a little more hopeful. The second term of our first black President is nearing its end, but a renegade political candidate with open disdain for minority groups is enjoying rising support. At such a moment in history, it is noteworthy that it is black Americans who seem to be keeping faith with the American Dream.바카라
Another poll, commissioned in 2015 by the Atlantic, that 바카라African Americans and Latinos are far more likely to be optimistic than their white counterparts, both about their personal station in life and the future of the country more broadly.바카라
Such people are anything but stupid. They know that their communities are confronting terrible challenges, but they know, too, how important it is not to forget to dance.
Why Doing Politics Is Like Surfing
How do outrageous ideas 바카라 for example, that women are human beings, or that the U.S. locks up way too many people, or even that gay people should be able to get married if they want to 바카라 suddenly morph into everyday commonsense? It바카라s rarely an accident. It almost always involves dedicated people working away for years on an issue, often unnoticed, before it seems suddenly to surge into general awareness.
Sometimes I think the politically engaged life is like surfing. You expend an enormous effort paddling past the breaking surf. Then you sit on your board breathing hard, scanning the horizon for the wave. Sometimes you sit out there for a long, long time, but when that wave comes, you have to be ready to grab it 바카라 and enjoy it.
Even when the wave looks like a sinking Donald J. Trump.
Rebecca Gordon, a , teaches in the philosophy department at the University of San Francisco. She is the author of . Her previous books include Mainstreaming Torture: Ethical Approaches in the Post-9/11 United States and Letters from Nicaragua.
The piece first appeared on
