What follows is the tale of a man who twice this month found himself out of step with the majority.
I’m going to make this posting very brief, not because I am speechless, but because I don’t want to repeat what so many people have already expressed in editorials, interviews, YouTube videos, and podcasts. To my astonishment, more people wanted Donald Trump to be President than not, and for the first time in three elections, he won the popular vote. I didn’t vote for Donald Trump. I thought that Kamala Harris was going to win. I am mystified by the choice that a majority of my fellow citizens made, and the one sliver of good news is that Trump’s victory was so decisive that there’s no room for questioning the outcome. Yet while I am dumbfounded and aghast, I am not especially depressed. All right, America. You asked for what’s about to come. Let’s see how it all works out. So far Mr. Trump seems determined to prove Karl Marx’s claim that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. He has just nominated Matt Gaetz to be the U.S. Attorney General. That’s akin to asking Charles Manson to supervise Health and Human Services.
Ironically, a couple of days ago, in an effort to escape the madness called reality, I made an exception to my habit of avoiding movie theaters and bought a ticket for Conclave. I wanted to see it on the big screen because of its strong reviews, its equally strong cast, and its source, a novel by Robert Harris, one of today’s best practitioners of historical fiction. I settled into my seat in the sparsely populated theater, endured the string of trailers, and watched eagerly as the movie began. Almost immediately I was surprised by how languidly the story opened, with a solemn bedside vigil for a dying pope. For the next hour I watched a grave and fretful Ralph Fiennes navigate the intrigue of Vatican politics with agonizing—that is, agonizing for both Fiennes’s character and me—delicacy. I watched Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow, both praised by critics for their performances, both terribly miscast in my view, maneuver and manipulate in failed attempts to become the new pontiff. Finally I had to ask myself, do I care what the hell happens in this unbearably ponderous movie? When the answer came back as a decisive “no,” I left without regret. But I find myself again in the minority and again baffled by the reactions of my fellow movie watchers, most of whom liked what they saw.
Before I sign off, however, let me note that I was recently in Cincinnati to witness the double christening of my great-nephews, Teddy and George Seward. Teddy is just a few days away from turning three, and George is going on seven months. They are both very happy boys with wonderful parents and grandparents. They were the unanimous delight of the congregation at Knox Presbyterian Church, and they were the equal delight of the family when my sister and brother-in-law hosted a post-baptismal reception at home. In contrast to my perplexity over the recent election, there’s nothing baffling about the joy generated by Teddy and George. “In the nightmare of the dark,” W. H. Auden wrote in 1939, “all the dogs of Europe bark.” But despite the timeliness of Auden’s words today, George smiles without expecting anything in return, and Teddy, without being asked, exuberantly belts out all the words and much of the instrumentation to “Build Me Up, Buttercup.” His voice overwhelms the sound of any barking dogs or woeful pundits, and his grin holds back the darkness. He recalls for us the optimism of Portia in The Merchant of Venice, who, returning home from a long journey, sees a single candle in her window and marvels at its power: “How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” Teddy and George, you’re our candles.