Why This Election Brought Jeremy Jones To Tears

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The car comes to a stop, the door opens and my daughter and friends pile out laughing and dancing.

“What is wrong Dad?”

She has seen the look before. It is associated with death. I brush off the question until we are in the car driving home. Tears fill my eyes. 

“Who won the election?”

I struggle to speak. I have not said the words yet and my mouth fails me.

“Trump,” I mumble.

I feel sick. I am shaking. I am angry. Not at the uneducated blue collar white person from the rust belt who dreams of the bygone glory years of industry. I am angry at the baby boomers. The baby boomer generation that, under their watch, has systematically ruined the planet. The ones who believe in growth at all costs. The ones that only care about their bottom line. The ones who refuse to evolve and refuse to listen to science because it will hurt their bank account a few points. The ones on social security that my kids will not have. The ones that will be long gone when the burden of climate change will be shouldered by our kids. I hope the market crashes. Even if it effects my bottom line. I don’t care. 

I wake in the middle of the night. My stomach is still knotted. 

“Was it a dream?” 

“Did it really happen”

“Where do we go from here?”

“Is the fight useless?” 

“Clean Power Plan, Gone. Paris, Gone. Years of progress, gone in just a few hours. ”

“Do I give up? Do I leave the fight? I am sick of the fight. Sick of the hate. What’s the point? Is it a lost cause? Why do I bother? The human race will kill itself off. The planet will heal over time once we are gone. We are a disease.”

“Should I move to Canada? Or disconnect? Get offline? Drop out? Hide in the woods? Get out of the public eye?”

“How do I give speeches on climate now? I have one in three days. My talk about progress and hope is useless. It is no longer true.”

I focus on deep breathing and meditation to get myself back to sleep. A technique I deployed in similar situations when I have lost a friend.

Waking, I go down a similar road as a few hours ago.

“Was it a bad dream?”

I check my phone. No! I focus on breathing.

“What now? Where do we go from here?”

I look outside at a rising sun. I take strength in the last leaves hanging by a thread on the Aspen tree and the steam rising off the ground. 

I drop my kids off at the bus stop. There is a weight to the air. I get a hug from a friend. I fight back tears looking at the kids. I can’t look them in the eye. I have failed them. 

I ride my bike to work. The cold air wakes me. The morning inspires me. Nature inspires me. My least favorite Grateful Dead song comes on but I don’t bother to skip it, “Dawn is breaking everywhere, light a candle curse the glare…. I will get by, I will survive.”

Today I like it. Today I need it. It makes me smile, my first in a while.

Get over it and get going. 

The fate of the world is in the Republicans’ hands. Get the Republicans on board. It is the only way now. Start with the 11 Republicans who believe in climate change. Find a way in. Learn from them. Find more. We only need a few more. Inspire the Republican voters. I have always believed they were the missing piece to solving this. Now they are the only piece to solving this. Put more focus on the state level, the town level, the PUD level. 

The Grateful Dead song continues, “I see you got your fist out, say your piece and get out, yes I get the gist of it but it’s alright, sorry that you feel this way there is only this to say, every silver lining has a touch of grey.”

What is the silver lining?

Nevada worked. Colorado worked. Follow the playbook. Take it to tougher places.
Lick our wounds. Move on. Fight on.

-Jeremy Jones

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