FRESH AIR – Soaring with Gershwin Above Election Day Stress

This morning, Election Day 2020, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about the pending outcome.

I'm nestled in my recliner, pecking out what just might be my last post for Pop This Boil!, my Trump-resistance blog. (It's about the psychology of bystander inaction in the face of cruelty, and how that syndrome might help explain our soon-to-be-former president's base's failure to stand up to the man's oft-repeated assaults on their fellow citizens and on democratic institutions—not to mention on their own interests.)

And then, on Minnesota Public Radio, they play Gershwin's majestic Fanfare for the Common Man. I put down my laptop, turn the volume way up and just listen. I let those sounds, the soaring and the sublime, transport me. For these four glorious minutes, my spirit has taken wing.

From this lofty vantage point things are so clear. I see all those tens of millions of my countrymen boldly asserting their voices, refusing intimidation and inconvenience. I breathe easier knowing the wheels of democracy are turning, my country busy reclaiming the hope, the aspiration, the decency that's been sucked out of the room for the past four years by a petty tyrant with an insatiable ego.

And I feel a soaring sense of pride and faith in the beacon of freedom and opportunity I know this country can—and will—continue to shine.

Yes, it was a good day. The first, I trust, of many, many such days to come.