The Doomsters

I’VE NEVER BEEN MUCH in thrall to the doomsayers. They used to be charmingly represented in single-panel cartoons as a bearded old man hefting a sign on which is block-lettered something wittily apposite; now they’re spewing their bile over talk-radio and internet shows. They have the skills of a cult leader, offering acceptance into an elite group that welcomes you once you have accepted the terms of membership, largely a matter of understanding that the persecution you feel comes from groups you can hate.

Thomas Hardy

I’m stopped right there. I don’t feel persecuted. I have learned that those responsible for denying me access to economical housing, healthy foodstuffs, and affordable healthcare are the white male gazillionaires who have created a world for themselves in which they are safe from the regulatory laws that, in a sane society, would stop them.

But I’m now in a state of what I’m terming “anticipatory persecution.” As an elderly white male of a solidly middle-class upbringing, I’m one of those whose paths long have been smoothed by our racist, patriarchal society. Thanks to a long marriage to a financially responsible spouse, my unreliable income has been pooled into a retirement fund that should see us through our dotages. I also have access to a robust health insurance plan that keeps my ticker ticking even as my ability to walk is waning and arthritis is waxing all over the place. I figured I could age and die in relative peace.

That changed last Wednesday. I couldn’t sleep. I tried to stay away from news sites, but sneaked glances at them throughout the night, the news ever worsening until it screamed irrefutable judgment. Enough of America had voted according to unreasoning anger and fear to re-install in the White House the worst president this country ever has seen. And that’s saying a lot, with Richard Nixon and George W. Bush vying for that title.

We got compelling tastes of an ideological fright-fest as 2017 crept by. We saw immigrant children in cages, we saw our parks and national monuments despoiled, we saw obstruction and cover-ups even as loyalty oaths were administered; we saw illegal profiteering, the gutting of the EPA, and the most despicable rogues’ gallery of unqualified loyalists inhabit positions of importance in that government. And we saw a pandemic sweep in and kill millions because it was so horribly handled.

The agenda for 2025 was publicized well before the election. It’s worse. Robbing the poor has always been easy; now the plan is to go after people like you and me. Social Security checks are now the bulk of my earnings: they’re in the crosshairs. I fear for my health insurance. And I’m especially nervous about the national conversation. It has grown more and more fractious as people retreat into increasingly fantastic and fatalistic beliefs. Racism, misogyny, and homophobia have always been vital components of the lowbrow philosophy, but they used to be kept at least a little more secret. Not any more! Already the FBI is investigating reports of hateful text messages being sent to Black people across the country informing them that they’ve been “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.” This includes students at the Albany university where my wife works.

I can’t imagine things getting better in the coming four years, but I think that’s because I’ve had the Doomsters crawl into my head. They’re different from the doomsayers. Doomsayers like Hannity and Shapiro and Beck are merely paid (very well paid) shills for the oligarches, and don’t necessarily believe the shit they spew. The Doomsters are the real thing, wreaking mental havoc, keeping us awake.

They appeared in Thomas Hardy’s “To an Unborn Pauper Child,” reading, in part:

    Breathe not, hid Heart: cease silently,
    And though thy birth-hour beckons thee,
    Sleep the long sleep: The Doomsters heap
    Travails and teens around us here
    And Time-Wraiths turn our songsingings to fear.

And they inspired the title of a 1958 Ross Macdonald novel wherein a complex tale of family and murder plays out against a depressing sense of inevitability.

As I mentioned, I couldn’t sleep on Tuesday night. Sometime at about 6 AM on Wednesday I awakened my wife to declare that I’d had enough of the rural county in which we live, populated as it is with the breed of knuckle-draggers who voted in the horrorshow to come. Not that I could think of a good alternative address. Later I calmed myself by reminding myself that we live on a farm, that these arable acres should be protected and cultivated – that there’s a degree of isolation here that self-sufficiency only will enhance. And that when I decide to raise my gaze from my own self-pitying navel, I’ll recognize those around me who haven’t been body-snatched into ignorance. And that I must join forces with those people to keep the light of intelligence glowing for at least a little while longer.