Conundrum

April 2, 2024 – John Abrams

Ever since George W. Bush was helped by the Supreme Court to topple Al Gore for the presidency in 2000, many of us say, every four years, that this is the most critical election in our lifetimes.

Back then, I didn’t understand that the election that was truly most important for our lives today, and for the state of the nation, was when Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980. Now, I understand that to be the one that shifted the paradigm and defined the trajectory of the next 44 years, right up to now.

If Jimmy Carter had won that election, we would be in a fundamentally different place today in regard to equity and climate. Instead, we are now deeply entrenched in the paradigm that Reagan exemplified and successfully communicated: “Government is the problem, not the solution.”

If Jimmy Carter’s plans had gone forward – to begin the renewables transition in earnest and to prioritize decency among humans – we might be living in the world we wish for instead of struggling against a relentless tide that seeks to stop these efforts.

It's interesting to me that Carter is the only president in my lifetime who has been a truly important figure after leaving office. I’m still hoping for Obama to shine. Obama was inspirational and groundbreaking, but ultimately, he was a disappointing president – even with 60 Democratic senators, he was unwilling or unable to take us beyond Reagan. Biden has successfully begun to do that.

It’s clear to me that Trump won’t win this election, but not clear enough for complacency.

Here’s my question to myself: How can I have an impact on this year’s election and continue to focus my work on my long-term projects that I care deeply about? The conundrum is this: I don’t actually want to work to impact the election – I want others to do that work while I do the work that I want to do. Since there are no “others,” only us, this approach is unacceptable.

It's a contradiction I need to figure out. Soon.

So far, the only thing I’ve figured out is to direct all my charitable donations this year strictly to electoral politics and political candidates. Because that is a relatively small amount of money, in the scheme of things, that’s an incomplete answer.

But here’s something else I might do, not just this year but in the years to come. To explain it requires some background.

Aside from every single person in the world who is kind and respectful to others and hopeful in the face of trouble (and there are a lot of people like that – maybe it’s most people), I have few heroes. One is Bill McKibben.

In 1989, when I read The End of Nature – his first book –  I was stunned, and kind of irritated too. Wait a minute, I thought, where’s the good stuff? This is complete doom and gloom with no solutions offered. He must have felt the same, because his next book, Hope, Human and Wild, painted another picture, one that illustrated, in the face of certain calamity, cause for optimism.

I have paid rapt attention ever since – with deep admiration – to his remarkable career as a journalist and as a relentless and effective activist.

His latest book, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon, is a significant departure from all his other work. It’s probably as close as he’ll ever get to writing a true memoir, and it’s also his awakening of sorts. He puts patriotism, religion, and the suburbs in the context of his own life. It’s fundamentally about the additional intractables we must address while we combat climate change:  wealth inequality, racism, and threats to our imperfect democracy.

He talks about what has happened since Reagan won that 1980 election:

“An astonishing amount of damage has been done – scads of lives blighted by inequality, our democracy endangered, and the planet itself badly scarred, perhaps beyond salvation.”

So what to do?

McKibben has an idea about this. He thinks that the largest generation in our history – we baby boomers, with our retirement time, our financial resources, our skills, and the grandchildren whose futures we worry about – can be at the forefront of big solutions by becoming activists. In 2021, he founded the organization Third Act to be the agent of this notion and to convince older Americans (like me) to pitch in and become climate change activists and election activists. In its short life, the organization has grown tremendously and pulled a ton of retirees off the couch, in from the golf course, and on to the frontlines of change. We still have the opportunity to leave a better world for those grandchildren.

And it’s not all old folks. Bill came to the Vineyard last summer to talk about Third Act, and the staffers who were with him were young, energetic, and deeply committed.

I’ve been a member since the beginning, but I’ve never done anything except pay my dues. So to solve my conundrum, along with continuing to donate to Move On and Movement Voter Project, and particular candidates, I’m going to get involved with Third Act electoral work and contribute more than money. Don’t know when, but soon.

There. I said it. Now I’ve got to do it.