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These Are Things I Think About
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November 6, 2018. A lot of Americans began counting down to this date in the wee hours of November 9, 2016, when it became clear that a seismic shift happened in American government with Donald Trump's election as President. In those dark, early hours, as millions of us were stunned, scared, horrified, angry, November 6, 2018 became the beacon of light on which we would hang our hopes for salvation from this twisted, raging storm of hatred, fear, and insanity. We would organize, mobilize and vote, and ride a Blue Wave back to the shores of rationality and stability. Well, November 6, 2018 has come and gone, and the Blue Wave was...more of a ripple than the straight-up surge many Democrats and progressives were hoping for. There were victories, to be sure. Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives, which also now boasts a record number of women representatives, including the first-ever Muslim, Indigenous and Korean-American women elected to Congress. Seven states flipped from Republican to Democrat governors. Florida voted "yes" on Amendment 4, which automatically restores voting rights to over a million ex-felons. In the Senate, meanwhile, the Republicans maintain their majority, with breakout Democrat star Beto O'Rourke falling to Ted Cruz by less than 250,000 votes. Likewise, in Florida's governor race, another Democrat newcomer, Andrew Gillum, was edged out by his Republican opponent, Ron DeSantis (although there is speculation that a recount might be possible). In Georgia's governor race, Democrat Stacey Abrams, who would become the first African-American woman elected as governor in the U.S., has yet to concede to her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, although as of this writing he leads her by 62,880 votes. Abrams refusal to concede has much to do with reports of attempted voter suppression in Georgia, where Kemp himself, as the state's current Secretary of State, oversees elections. All of this has me feeling, on November 7, a bit like Ben Wyatt when he and Leslie Knope find out they're having triplets:  The Blue Wave was supposed to wash Trumpians (if not Trump himself) right out of Washington. Clearly there is still a disturbing number of people in this country for whom outright racism, sexism, lying and corruption is not an issue when it comes to their elected officials. As Vox reports, "The preliminary results reveal the divides that determined the 2016 election are intensifying and strengthening." The article goes on to say a lot of stuff that isn't really news, at least to anyone who has been paying attention to American politics for the last several years. The current American political divide is based on several factors, including voters' race, education and income levels, and geographic location, all of which has led to what writer Zack Beauchamp calls a "cold civil war." While it feels great to finally the name the thing we've been increasingly struggling with for the last two years, the question still remains - what do we do with that?
We can turn our sights to November 3, 2020, the next Presidential election, but does that mean we are falling into a cycle of waiting and hoping that every two years we can possibly gain some ground in moving the country in a more progressive direction? And is it even really wise to continue to pin our hopes on elections when they remain so vulnerable to interference, both foreign and domestic? It's becoming more and more clear (to me at least) that the GOP will do whatever it takes to gain and maintain power, including lying, disenfranchising and suppressing voters, and letting elections remain vulnerable to hacking and interference. Forgive me for sounding like I'm wearing a tinfoil hat, but I think a little dose of cynicism might do the Democrats some good right about now. Yes, Tuesday's victories are exciting and game-changing, but is anyone actually concerned that the game is really rigged? A democracy in which citizens cannot exercise their voting rights freely and with confidence is not much of a democracy. We can (and should) look ahead to 2020, but can we be confident enough in our election system that, even with voter support, we can overcome and correct the many troubling issues in our government and society? And even if Americans do feel they can place their faith in the structures and practices of our democracy, the fact remains that the cold civil war is intensifying and will likely continue to do so over the next two years. How do we overcome this? Can we overcome this? Or is an actual civil war the only end game here? I have a very active imagination, but with the country so fundamentally divided on so many issues, even I struggle to imagine how this is all going to shake out. I'm not a political analyst, nor am I trying to incite a rebellion. But there are 727 days until the 2020 election. A lot can happen in 727 days. We need to use them wisely. Yes, that means remaining politically active, and finding new candidates to run and support. But it also means reflecting on some hard truths about where our country is, where we want it to go, and what we will need to do to take it there. I came to this conclusion recently while I was trying to dig up the roots of my greatest fear, which is not leaving any kind of legacy, and being forgotten once I'm dead, and everyone I know is dead. This fervent desire to leave behind some kind of tangible evidence that I once existed on this planet has been a major fuel source for my creative endeavors, which is good, but it's also filled me with fear and anxiety about running out of time, and not possessing the talent or creativity to leave behind something meaningful enough to outlive me.
For the record, I know that my life, as it is currently, is meaningful. I know I have a lot of strong, significant relationships with many people about whom I care very much, and who care very much about me. I know that I've done well in my jobs, and that through my work, I have helped others achieve their ambitions. I know that people have seen my plays and comedy, and been touched by it. I'm not discounting any of that. But, friends, I'm a planner. I need to know that, in 100 years, if civilization hasn't succumbed to nuclear war/climate change/inter-species mating with Gritty, someone somewhere will know that Kristen Scatton existed. And I blame all that on Titanic. Since Titanic came out 20 years ago, I'm going to go ahead and assume that you've seen it. If you haven't - seriously, stop being that person who hates pop culture, fucking watch it already, and come back in 3 1/2 hours. If you don't have 3 1/2 hours, go here and come back in 10 minutes. All caught up? Great. I was 13 when Titanic came out, just a small-town girl living in an ass-backwards, culturally empty, suburban world, although I didn't really know that yet. I was still relatively happy in my rainbow sticker and glitter lip gloss bubble. I went to see Titanic with my girlfriends on a wintry Friday night, because we went to the movies every Friday night. Movies were one of the few non-drug-related forms of entertainment available to teenagers in my hometown, and at $3.50 a pop, tickets were actually something I could afford on my weekly allowance. There was a lot of buzz about Titanic, and we all knew Leonardo DiCaprio was a hottie because of Romeo + Juliet, so it was more exciting that going to see, say, Mousehunt (poor Nathan Lane. He really must have needed a paycheck.) Still, I had no idea that when the lights went down in the Church Hill Cinema that night, a seismic shift was about to take place in my young life. "I figure life's a gift, and I don't intend on wasting it. You don't know what hand you're gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you...to make each day count." So says Jack Dawson (DiCaprio), completely owning a bunch of stuffy first-class d-bags who try to humiliate him for committing the horrible crime of being poor. It's an important character development moment for both Jack and Rose (Kate Winslet), who recognizes something of herself in Jack's desire to squeeze every drop of juice out of life. A short time later, it becomes utterly devastating (at least to a 13-year-old girl who has never been confronted with the concept of mortality) when Jack's bobbing like a cork in the middle of the North Atlantic, frozen to death. When the film's present-day Rose (Gloria Stuart) concludes her tale of doomed romance by saying, "He exists now, only in my memory," I was shattered. I didn't know why; I don't even think I really knew that something new and big had broken open inside me. I was sobbing because it was just so sad, they were so in love, it isn't fair, are we SURE they both couldn't have fit on that slab of wood??? I was obsessed with the movie because it's such an amazing love story and Leonardo DiCaprio is so hot! and the special effects are incredible and saw it 8 times in the movie theater (remember, tickets were THREE FUCKING FIFTY, so this was entirely possible). But it was more than that. I see that now. Titanic dug into my psyche, and evenly though my obsession abated after a time, it never fully disappeared. There it was, bobbing back to the surface like a popsicle-ified Jack Dawson, as I reflected on my deeply embedded fear of my existence being lost to the ravages of memory and time. Before I saw Titanic, death had not really touched my charmed world. Once or twice a distant relative whom I had met once would pass away, but these were people who I wouldn't have been able to pick out of a lineup. There deaths meant little more to me than a baby-sitter while my parents went to the wake. (Which, sidebar, wakes are one of the worst social functions human beings ever created. Like, I get before modern medicine, it was necessary to wait and make sure the person was really dead. We're beyond that now. We have stethoscopes and coroners. There is absolutely no reason for all of the dead person's relatives to stand in a line and stare at the corpse of their loved one for three hours, It's a downright macabre tradition, and I refuse to be a party to it, especially at my own funeral. You want to honor me? Crack open a good bottle of Scotch, crank up "I Want It That Way," and tell the funniest stories you can remember about me until the sun rises. Those are my instructions. This blog is basically as legally binding as a will, right?) Aaaanyway...therefore, when I first saw Titanic as a teenager, it hit me with a triple-whammy truth bomb: 1.) I would die. 2.) It could happen at any time. 3.) Once I died, eventually, everyone would forget about me, and it would be like i never existed at all. That's a lot to take in when all you wanted to do was spend a night out with friends and stare at a beautiful, blue-eyed boy who makes you feel kind of tingly and weird in your bathing suit area. Seeded by this revelatory information, my desire to "make each day count" was born fully-formed on the Church Hill Cinema's sticky, popcorned floor. Suddenly my school was too small, my town was too small, by life was too small. I had to do something big, something memorable, lest my time on this earth be cut short abruptly. Much of the drama of my teenage years was fueled by this burning desire to live, coupled with the unnameable anxiety that I was wasting so much of my precious, limited time. These desires and anxieties morphed over the years, ebbed and flowed, but to this day, they are present. They are what forces me to write, even just for 15 minutes, even if I'm exhausted. They are pushing me to pick up my life, move across the county, and try to make it in one of the most competitive industries in the world. They keep me sitting here, finishing this blog, even though it's 9:25 pm and I haven't eaten dinner yet. For 20 goddamn years, the mantra has been imprinted in my mind: Make it count. Make it count. Make it count. Why is this so important to me? Why can't I simply be content to live a good life, make a positive impact on the people I know, and accept that one day I will just be a name on a tombstone, like so many others? I don't know have an answer for that right now. A lyric from Hamilton, another pop-culture phenomenon about untimely death with which I became obsessed (although unlike Leo, I only want to fuck Lin-Manuel Miranda's brain) comes to mind. As Hamilton stares down the bullet that will end his life, he says, "Legacy. What is a legacy? It's planting seeds in a garden you never get to see." Now, if you're half as bad a gardener as I am, you know that a lot of flowers never bloom. But you'll never have any hope for a garden at all if you don't at least plant the seeds. And so I plant, in hopes that something, somewhere along the way, will outlive me. |
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