Journal Entry 3-1-25

The closest thing I have to a journal right now is my blog. This means that I write less frequently about personal stuff. Today I was compelled to get my thoughts and feelings down, and this is the place I store that kind of thing. It’s long, and if you’re not in the mood for a long and somewhat sad read, I totally understand if you want to move on to someone else’s blog post. Love you all. ❤

     I heard a thought-provoking podcast from This American Life today, while I was outside in the blessed sunshine in a T-shirt doing cleanup work on the deck.

     It’s called Ten Things I Don’t Want to Hate About You; the title clearly a play on a very similar movie title starring Julia Stiles and the sorely missed Heath Ledger. It’s a true story about one year in the life of Zach Mack and his father, who is getting more and more caught up in conspiracy theories to the frustration of the rest of the family. Zach occupies the role of peacemaker in his family, and while he can talk to each of them, they are increasingly not talking to each other. His Jewish mom, his lesbian sister, and he all hold the same vision of an ideal future world: that somehow Zach’s father could understand that he is being misled by things he sees on the Internet, relax his stubborn ways and come together as a loving family again.

     Zach is pleasantly surprised when his dad, who also wants heal the family, proposes a bet. Their wager looks like an easy win for Zach, and he approves the proposed terms. His father made a list of 10 things he is convinced will happen during the year 2024. The 10 things are all political conspiracy theories, like Biden will be convicted of treason, the Clintons will be convicted of murder, Trump will be reinstated in the White House without a new election, martial law will be declared across the United States, etc. They wager $10,000 – which is kind of silly because neither of them gamble and it’s a huge sum – but they agree to it in all seriousness. The remainder of the terms are what both men want more than the money: whomever loses agrees to say out loud to the other, “I was wrong; and you were right.” Both men are 100% convinced they will win this bet.

     Zach shared with listeners his hard work during the entire year, to get to the bottom of what was happening with his dad, in order to save his family. The podcast was mostly bits of conversations, with Zach trying desperately to – as he put it – share a reality with his father. In other words, to be on the same page. His dad spends the year in a lot of vulnerability, patiently answering all of his son’s questions, even in the face of his son’s doubt. Zach (and I, to be honest) was impressed with that.

     The reason this story moved me is because I saw my own family in the characters. Their conversations sometimes reminded me of conversations with my own father, spiraling around stuck points, never ending with one person coming closer to the other person’s side, hours of frustrating emotional discussion leading right back to the original positions. When I wouldn’t agree with him, my father usually devolved into angry aggression, spewing mean remarks about how stupid I was to NOT believe in all the conspiracies. Maybe Zach’s dad did that too, and they were edited out. My father’s vitriol often blocked my ability to remain calm and in conversation, and it would have sabotaged the podcast as well.

     Zach’s father had been feeling unsettled and confused, and little bit fearful of things going on around him. Not sure who to trust, he decided to rely on his faith. He came across a person on the Internet claiming to be God’s prophet, and he believes that she is. He recognized his own human weaknesses, and decided to rely on God’s word, coming through the vessel of His prophet. It made him feel better, and he decided to help his family by trying to guide them closer to God. He wanted this same peace and surety for them. And so, out of deep religious faith, and deep love for his family, he refused to consider that what the prophet was telling him was wrong. He thought, if he could just prove to his family that God was still working through people today, for example his favourite online prophet, then his family would all come around to his way of thinking. So he picked the ten most likely to come true prophecies from the person online, and came up with the idea of the bet.

     My dad became a Christian extremist in the decade leading up to his death, and I could easily imagine an identical path for him. Me imagining the possibility that my father had been acting that way out of love is the first benefit of the doubt I’ve given him since about 2017 (he died in 2021). Nearly every one of our fights, regardless of topic, included him in pious diligence yelling, “My proof is the Bible! The literal Word of God!” and me silent and deflated, always unable to think of a response to that. Maybe he kept bringing up the Bible because he was trying to get me to embrace his faith, which gave him comfort, and not trying to make me believe I was a total loser, as it sounded. I mean, he did SAY that I was a loser (and an idiot, and brainwashed, and selfish, and a bad mother…), but maybe his point was that there was still hope if I turned to God.

     My dad was a conspiracist before conspiracies were all the rage. Since I was a child old enough to understand, he listed his many grievances, believing that everyone was out to get the White Man, and finding evidence of it on all sides of him. He ranted about this stuff constantly as I was growing up. I had a clear understanding the term “reverse racism” in the 1980s. In all these years I have been thinking about what made him this way and my conclusion is that he was a deeply insecure man, and his fear was the driving force in his life. Because of that opinion, I didn’t respect his conclusions nor the source of his fears. I realize that I am applying that approach to everyone who believes conspiracies in the world today.

     The other story line in the podcast, of course, is United States politics. Me, my family, my friends, my former co-workers, people I follow on TikTok, have asked ourselves how we can bridge the gap and reunite our shattered family. In between bouts of anger and despair we have had hope: somehow there must be a way to be the UNITED states again. We don’t hate the Trumpers, we understand that they are vulnerable, and they have been lied to. We understand that in Trump they have hope for future security. Many of them have found the path to Trump via their faith, which in these times – good heavens – people are right to rely on. We love many of them, though we don’t understand their conclusions, and we want what’s best for them.

     It is very hard for me to earnestly engage any of the people who see hope in what Trump is doing because I do not respect the source of their convictions. Like my dad, I’m sure it’s based in insecurity, and I do not support hurting others in order to salve your own pain. I urgently want them to see that their lashing out is a symptom, not a truth. So while I say I want the best for Trumpers, I mean that on my terms, not theirs. I’d like to believe I’m different than them, better than them, but I see that I am uncomfortably similar in some ways.

     At the end of the podcast, Zach’s father admits that zero of his predictions came true. He adamantly declared that each one of those things would come to pass, but it would take more time. Zach asked him to make the statement, and his dad was quick to acquiesce, saying with a hint of sarcasm, “Oh, Wow, Zach, I was wrong. And you were not wrong.” Zach protests, saying he wanted him to mean it. “I do mean it. I was completely wrong about the timeline thing.” Zach said it was absolutely unsatisfying to reach the moment that he had been waiting all year for.

     This podcast left me nearly hopeless for the resolution of political differences in my country. It makes me realize that all my attempts to communicate with my father were a waste of our time. If my country’s citizens are anything like the family in the story – and I believe we are – good people who have come to radically different and staunch opinions, there is very little chance of us coming together until all the relevance of the current political moment is gone. When most humans in the country have something entirely different on their minds, and we are all pretty much in agreement about it, then there will be hope. I’m talking of something on the level of the Great Depression or nuclear war. Those things seem vastly more likely than us figuring out how to get along.

     It has left me wading into some pretty catastrophic waters of thought. Some days I stay above it. Some days I sink. But I have total faith in humanity, and I always will. Even if MOST of us are terrible, there will always be some who will remind us of our beautiful potential for good, and compel us to try harder to be better. I might not see that day when this dreadful shift in social negativity turns around, and maybe Kellen won’t see it in their lifetime, but on the other hand maybe it will be in three years or three months. Who knows? All is not lost and never will be. For some dumb reason that is enough for me to keep going.