What to Do, What to Do

The news is still reverberating from San Antonio where 50 migrants – men, women and children – were steamed to death in the back of a sealed semi. Where do I find an appropriate response to such a grim horror?

 I’m shocked into paralysis by watching the leaked draft of “Justice” Clarence Thomas become the established law of the land. It isn’t “just abortion,” although that would be more than enough. It’s women’s rights, human rights, our rights. What should I do about this?

I was stumped when I heard the testimony of two women before the Congressional committee -- Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, a veteran election worker from Georgia, and Cassidy Hutchinson, late of the Trump White House.

Ms. Moss told us all that “I did my job, as I’ve always done my job.” For doing her job, Ms. Moss was targeted by Trump’s bad joke, Rudy Giuliani, who offered up lies and threats, and publicized the names of Ms. Moss and her mother. Mobs camped out on her mother’s yard, chanting threats and racist taunts. The sleazy cowards even invaded the home of her grandmother. I shivered when the Committee showed video testimony from Ms. Moss’s mother who asked plainly, “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?”

I wondered how I could support her, what I should do to help?

It happened again when Cassidy Hutchinson sat calmly before the Committee and the nation, outlining in bruising detail what she heard and saw of Donald Trump as the Capitol was assaulted on January 6. She noted his readiness to lead the mob calling for a noose on his vice president’s neck. She named the names of reptilian men who wanted a presidential pardon despite claims that they’d done nothing wrong. She substantiated his childish temper tantrums, throwing his lunch when he didn’t get his way. In two hours of testimony, as one observer noted, Ms. Hutchinson did an admirable job of reading the ketchup on the wall.

And me? I wondered how, observing Ms. Hutchinson’s courage – at age 25! – I could make a difference. What should I do?

When facing imponderable questions it’s been my habit to seek guidance from heroes like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu who suffered deeply and led brilliantly. If I could ask Dr. Martin Luther King what I should do, I think I know his response: “Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country and a finer world to live in.” But how do I do that? What actions do I take?

Or, I might look toward survivors of Buchenwald, including Viktor Frankl whose father, mother and pregnant wife were tortured to death in that camp. One year after his release he wrote the inspiring Man’s Search for Meaning. “If I am not for myself,” he wrote, “who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?” I agree, but what does that mean I should do?

Gradually, I’m beginning to sense what I, Mary Fisher, need to do.

I need to hear Frankl’s middle sentence: “If I am not for others, what am I?” If I do not live for The Other, then “what am I?” Right -- I need to stop worrying about me and focus as much as I can on the needs of others. It isn’t necessarily heroic to feed the hungry or gift a politician with integrity. But it’s right. It’s about The Other – now. It’s what I ought to do.

And Ms. Moss is the right model. I should “just do my job” as a citizen of the nation. I should oppose those who cheat on election maps and lie under oath, and be equally ready to contribute to those with courage and honor. I should care deeply about the adolescent mother who is denied an abortion by circumstance, economics and law. I should remember 50 immigrants who may have loved America so much they died for it. And I should note that the first responsibility of every citizen is to vote. My job? Vote!

Especially in these days, I should be a truth teller, unintimidated by Trumpian forces of evil. Justices may lie under oath to win appointment to the Court; it’s wrong. Would-be dictators may try to grab the wheel; they’re wrong. In public and in private, I need to tell the truth. Be a witness to Frankl’s courage. Stand boldly in the tradition of Mandela, Tutu and King. Don’t flinch when evil celebrates an occasional win; come back the next day bringing with you the good truth.

If I can do this, I’ll look to my right and see Shaye Moss doing her job. To my left will be public servant Cassidy Hutchinson, doing her job. I may not always know what to do next, but I know this would put me in very good company.

Scream

During the years I spent mostly in my studio as a working artist, I would occasionally reflect on Norwegian Edvard Munch’s famous portrait “Scream,” a sordid face reflecting the terrorized human condition.

I preferred images of flowers and photographs of my children. But I never was far from Munch’s ghastly scream.

I stumbled into this week still trying to come to grips with the racial hatred that motivated a slaughter in Buffalo. Then came Uvalde: Nineteen children’s bodies near those of two adults who tried to save them. How do I deal with this? What do I say, and to whom?

Jennifer Rubin is absolutely right: “No sane society would permit this.” Gun reform was adopted in a matter of days after shootings in New Zealand, Australia, England and elsewhere. The argument that constitutional “freedom” gives every American 18-year-old the right to bear weapons of war is clearly insane. Look at the evidence. Listen to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson famously declare that the Constitution is not a suicide pact.

I believe in prayer but it feels both hypocritical and profane to call for prayer while merely shaking our heads over mass shootings. God knows we’ve had occasion to make change, starting in 1966 when Charles Whitman first climbed the tower at the University of Texas to get clear shots at the 16 people he killed and 49 more he wounded. Our schools have been killing grounds ever since.

We’ve elected officials who have such cowardice they prefer praying over bodies of children to showing some courage by confronting the N.R.A. at its Texas gathering. The money pouring forth from the gun lobby is blood money, every drop of it. Any politician who wraps his hands around that money has no right to wring his hands in a charade of grief and call for prayer.  

Prayer isn’t what we need today, as if this is God’s problem. Robert Hubbell rightly noted last night, the problem is ours to address. Adopting laws and policies that prohibit such shootings is our job now. “It’s on us.”

Until the “leadership” of this country acts, not with a call to prayer but with a set of policies and laws, scream. Go ahead, scream. It’s at least an honest response to Uvalde and Buffalo and a half-century of our children’s innocent blood.  

Sh...

When it comes to those who have a leadership role – a Senator, maybe, or a CEO – I’ve always most admired the quiet ones.

I don’t know Warren Buffet personally but he strikes me as someone who doesn’t bellow and scream. I imagine he talks. I thought it was admirable when my father’s biography was published under the title “Quiet Diplomat.” There’s something that feels honorable, maybe humble, about those who speak softly no matter the size of their stick.

In recent months, President Biden has taken a fair (or unfair) amount of abuse for his failure to excite the Democratic troops. It’s alleged that he doesn’t have a message, or that he doesn’t deliver what he has. He stumbles over his words; occasionally true. He lacks a towering rhetorical presence; probably so.

Biden’s predecessor still loves the roar of the crowd; he’s diminished if there are empty seats. He has the volume turned up on any microphone he uses. He’s eager to rouse his loyalists with red-meat lines, “Lock her up” being one of the earliest and most enduring. He’s happy to shout his views and have them echoed by the masses. The truth of what he trumpets doesn’t matter. What matters is volume. Noise.

I don’t really know Biden’s view on bold rhetoric. Maybe he admires it. Maybe it’s what he aspired to offer when, as an adolescent, he clinched his jaw and steeled his mind to slow down the stuttering that led classmates to snicker. Neither do I know what this President says to families of slain soldiers when I see him touch their shoulders, lean in close and whisper. Biden is a man acquainted with grief, and the truth of grief always outweighs the photo op. Grief whispers, it doesn’t shout.

All this, it seems to me, echoes Biden’s career as a Senator. He was not the one most  likely to give rousing speeches. He was usually spending his time building relationships within his Party and across party lines. He knew that consensus was the only path to legislation, and he embodied it. He listened. Imagine that.

Critics point out that Biden owes it to his supporters to be a political leader during these days of blazing competition. They accuse him of not leading if he speaks gently. I beg to differ. 

Robert Hubbell recently pointed out, when reflecting on the President’s management of the U.S. economy, that during the years of the previous Administration, America’s national debt increased every single year. Trump was so eager to reward his cronies with massive tax cuts (for corporations and the wealthy) that he sunk the nation ever deeper in debt.

By contrast, says Hubbell, “during Biden’s first year in office, the deficit decreased by $350 billion and is on track to decrease by an additional $1.5 trillion by the end of this fiscal year. The latter will be the biggest decline in a single year in American history! And for the first time since 2016, the Treasury Department is planning to pay down debt for the current quarter.” Biden said all this in a press briefing last week. He said it softly. No one gave him headlines.

There’s something gracious about quiet leadership. It feels classy. In the face of intractable problems, it exudes its own kind of confidence, as if the analysis of mind-stumping issues is suited to reverie, as if hard decisions require some thoughtfulness enhanced by reflection and silence.

I worry some about President Biden’s low poll numbers. I wish he were more popular. But I don’t wish he were noisier. I think he’s done a stellar job at everything except, perhaps, selling himself. If Republicans reclaim the House or Senate in 2022, I’ll be profoundly disappointed (read: bordering on suicidal ideation). But I won’t yield my notion about what constitutes actual leadership.

The leadership I crave calls for the willingness to sacrifice for a vision, the compassion to care more deeply for others than for oneself, and the quiet courage to put oneself at the mercy of a harsh and sometimes cruel public. I like it most when all this comes wrapped in a soft-spoken, reassuring, honorable quiet that drowns out a frightened child’s stuttering.