The Poetry and Peril of Public Speaking

I flew the flag on the porch today. A patriotic day for old Joes.

Ever since the mob attacked the Capitol, I’ve been full of thoughts. I’ve wanted to blog about many things:

• Reforms we need to our election system. No, I don’t buy into the Trump “steal” lie, but there is plenty to think about. How money corrupts the system. How gerrymandering keeps state governments and the U.S. House unrepresentative. How I actually don’t care for mail voting. It’s not that I worry so much about fraud—although even without it, the fact that so many don’t trust it still causes me to pause—but that I want elections decided, by and large, by a vote on election day. I don’t want voting over weeks—I would rather the campaigns play out to the end.

• The need for new ways to think about the marketplace of ideas. I don’t want to curtail free speech, but the interconnected nature of the internet has created all kinds of odd alternative universes. As Hank Green ruminated in a recent post, the need to appeal to eyeballs online drives us to more extremes. Our walled gardens and echo chambers are getting deadly dangerous, and I want to explore ways to break out of that structure—without killing free speech.

• The tragic need to advocate for reality. Big Lies are winning, in some segments. A huge number of Republicans, despite a lack of evidence and the fact that their main source is a known liar, don’t believe Joe Biden won fairly. Which is rich, considering that Trump’s win was a more bitter pill to swallow—at least Biden also won the popular vote. Trump did win, but only because of odd American electoral quirks in which votes are not counted equally. I don’t dispute that those are the rules of our game—but the rules need to be questioned, and, anyway Joe won both ways, in the popular vote and the Electoral College. Wake up and smell the fraud. The “steal” wasn’t trying to bring Trump down after he lost, it was Trump trying to negate a free and fair election. But we don’t all agree on that. Reality is ephemeral, elusive, subjective and without some anchoring in the real world, you have delusional idiots in horns invading the temple of democracy with murder on their feeble minds. In today’s screen age, rationality needs better PR, and that’s a shame.

But the crush of a busy condensed school term, my own mixed emotional reaction at unfathomable events; in the end I have written none of the planned essays.

As was most of America, I was horrified by the events of Jan. 6. A president whips his basket of deplorables into a frenzy, and they attempt to toss sand into the gears of democracy. They even hunt for Mike Pence, only because the vice president decided, in the end, to do his constitutional duty as he saw it. Think about it—they were ready to hang Mike Pence not because he violated a law, but because he was doing his best to follow it.

Yes, violence was predictable. Yes, I think there are a lot of questions about who helped who and why security was so lax.

So, I’ve been on edge during this final fortnight of darkness. “Democracy dies in darkness” and Trump threw way too much shade.

Then today. Trump climbed aboard the chopper and said some final stupid before jetting off to rudely snub the incoming Joe. And I was in my office working and checked the CNN live feed on my computer when it was almost time.

I caught Kamala Harris taking the oath and could not believe the sense of relief that washed over me. And a few minutes early, just before noon in Washington, John Roberts began to feed Joe Biden the words of the oath.

And with that, Old Joe was President. Praise God, I have survived the Trump presidency, something that lately I had not been so sure of.

Then the little Black lady poet approached the microphone. I thought my heart would burst.

Amanda Gorman: “We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised, but whole; benevolent, but bold; fierce and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation, because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain, if we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy, and change our children’s birthright.”

Joe Biden spoke well, too—words that were articulate, in complete sentences. He didn’t try to scare us with the false bogeyman of “American carnage,” but soberly talked about the great challenges we face.

And now, as it ever was despite what tangerine depots may have said, Journalists are again not our enemies. The media you traduce brought you the sounds and images of today.

On the other hand, our bruised and battered country is not healed. And our media, a vital piece of the democracy built over generations, is in a state of flux.

I feel some hope. Change has come.

Still, we have to look back and try to figure out how a reality TV star captivated enough of the nation to capture high office. The Trump legacy must leave us asking: How did it happen? How did we come so close to descending into fascism? How did democracy almost die in delusion?

Today we saw some examples of soaring rhetoric that can lift our nation. But it comes after four years of crude, cruel, churlish language that was too popular and makes us look diminished. Public speaking is one of the keys to our continued public life, and we both live and die by it.

And how can we keep our freedom and yet ensure that this fragile, flawed form of government, imperfect yet better than any alternative, continues to endure?

The ongoing work must continue. The fight is never over; our liberties we prize and our rights we must maintain. But how? I don't yet know, but I am seeking. And taking some solace in voices like Lady Gaga's: