My long-time friend Tommy Bass, now in nursing care, did a full tour of duty as a Marine. In Vietnam. Early in the fighting. He was shot on three separate occasions, each wound graver than the one before. (He told me once this photo was shot about a mile away from him.)
When he came back, he was branded as a loser by his elders and a murderer by his peers.
One result was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
I was at Tommy’s home in Americus on that night in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected.There’s still some PTSD from that. In my mind I saw all that was to follow. The country sold to the highest bidder. The Federalist Society judges. The Insurrection. All of it.
I wasn’t alone. The entire Democratic Party has had PTSD since watching its candidate win the popular vote by 3 million votes yet lose to a monster because of a few thousand midwestern housewives who believed the lies they read in the National Enquirer.
A month ago, I got flashbacks. Bad ones. When Trump knocked out Joe Biden.
I was left in a fog. I turned off the TV, turned away from the news. Hard to do when you’re a reporter, but I kept to my beat, grabbed a book or my e-bike as soon as I was finished, and I wasn’t fun to live with. At all.
What I went through wasn’t unusual. Despite the good news coming from this Administration, we’ve been clinging to our fingernails. Republicans, convinced Trump’s 2020 didn’t really happen, have marched gleefully on, with a sense of impunity like South Carolina Confederates in 1860 or German soldiers 80 years later.
Heal
Joy. Fearlessness. In your face audaciousness. A Winston Churchill quality, with a feminine touch.
Not like she had a choice. She’s an Indian-Jamaican woman running for the White House. Break all the glass ceilings, y’all. She laughed off the attacks. It made her opponents furious. It motivated supporters on her behalf. And we got busy.
But it’s a different mindset than what Joe Biden brought. Biden was a weight. He was Lincolnesque, sorrowful. He did as much as he could, for as long as he could, but we all knew time was running out.
Then came Kamala. Laughing. Dancing. Attacking the Trump Reich directly, personally. Doing a prebuttal of all the criticisms, making them seem even smaller and more bigoted than they were. There was no defensive crouch, just hooks and combinations.
This will be hard to get used to. But it’s the only way to get through our collective PTSD, and the sense of exhaustion it has left us with. Keep Kamala and carry on.
Victory
Here’s why I know this can work.
Tommy became a Daoist and vegetarian. He did meditation, and he took care of his friends for over 50 years after his war experience. When he finally went to a reunion of his old unit, in the 1990s, it turned out he was the only one there who wasn’t taking narcotics to deal with the aftermath of the battle. His laughter rings in my ears every day, even as he lies 100 miles away, slowly dying. It will remain with me forever.
Tommy came through far worse trauma in Vietnam than anyone did in November 2016, or even January 6. He fought his PTSD with service, with faith, with hard work, and with joy.
Kamala is going to win this. America won’t destroy itself over ghosts of racism, religious bigotry, misogyny, and hatred we spent 250 years beating.
We, the people, will have the last laugh.
