Struggling with the U.S. election results? Consider these resources for Canadian news consumers and journalists to stay engaged and make a positive impact in their communities.
You know that feeling of impending doom you or your friends and family have been struggling to describe since you heard the U.S. election results? Maybe, like me, you’ve been pushing that feeling away with quiet anger and avoidance.
Of course, it’s also possible you haven’t felt much at all, either because you’ve successfully blocked it out or you’re one of the people who doesn’t see the harm in recent events and the effect it can have on life in Canada. But some of the people close to me have been struggling to describe a similar feeling. Two people, independent of each other, told me how they’ve been feeling “disembodied,” like they are not on the ground, even when they’re standing up.
What follows is a feeling of panic. Hyper-vigilance. Rushing from one thing to the next, with no breaks in between, as if we fell behind along the way and we’re stuck in a loop endlessly trying to catch up. This feeling of panic, I can understand. When things go wrong, we want to fix them as soon as possible. But what do we do when there are so many things wrong that we feel helpless to do anything about it?
That problem has plagued humanity since the beginning. It’s part of the human condition. What can we do as individuals in the face of this kind of uncertainty?
My first reaction was anger. America chose bigotry - limiting trans and queer rights even more, deporting immigrant families that fuel their economy, and stepping on women's right to decide what to do with their own bodies. Anger feels like the only appropriate response. But what followed my anger was a sense of defeat. I gave up all hope for America (again). That's because the fire of anger burns out fast. If that's your only tool to cope with the news, you will burn out too. Eventually you'll disengage and focus on stuff you can fix. To me, the worst case scenario is losing activists and journalists to exhaustion. The question becomes: what actions outlast bigotry?
In Pema Chodron’s Peace in Times of War, we’re reminded that on the grand scale, all conflicts come down to two sides who both think they’re right. In that situation, solutions can only be found through “a change of heart, from softening what is rigid in our hearts and minds.” Because guess what? “The people we get so upset at, they eventually move away or they die… nations that fight each other… no longer exist or they shift alliances and enemies become allies… everything changes with time.”
It takes courage to soften because it goes against our habit of hardening our hearts and closing our minds. In short, it doesn’t feel like rainbows and sunshine. It feels uneasy.
But what happens when we soften our hearts (other than that uneasy feeling) is courage. We find an opportunity to turn pain into constructive action. Slowly, we start to feel like we’re able to commit to action in our communities. The seeds of hate dissolve, and are replaced with lasting, sustainable action.
As climate journalist Emily Atkin explained on CBC Radio over the weekend, maybe news media in the U.S. failed to communicate the stakes of the election in a relatable way - the 'kitchen table issues' like the rising cost of living, rather than the seemingly insurmountable ones, like the rising of global CO2 levels - and if that’s true, she can accept that maybe her reporting was guilty of that too. But the day after the election, she did what she always does: she went back to reporting on climate change. She reflected on better ways to report, she had conversations, she helped people, she did research. “I immediately felt better when I got to work,” she said. “The best antidote is to take some action in whatever way you can... the only solution is through it, not around it.”
Our communities need this kind of courage. When we work with community, nothing good is done in vain. The seeds we plant may take years to bear fruit, but they grow into the forests that generations depend on. The other cool thing about trees is that their root systems are connected locally. They thrive by sharing resources with their local network, and when they stand together they can break the wind of a hurricane.
There are a number of things that remain the same after the U.S. election. You will still do your work, you will still raise your kids, you will still go to church or school, and you will still be a member of your community. So let’s do what we can, fix what we can fix, and plant seeds of understanding.
Here are some resources to help you do that:
Emma Varvaloucas
The Progress Network reports on the good news of the day, connecting and amplifying voices that are pointing our world in a more positive direction.
Samanta Krishnapillai (she/her)
On Canada unpacks culture, news and politics like any best friend would, with warmth, and no-nonsense.
Arielle Samuelson
HEATED does accountability journalism for the climate crisis and arms you with the knowledge you need to effectively fight it.
