Many SBN community members were disappointed and devastated by the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Trump's speech and actions are totally at odds with the Buddhist values of care, compassion, and interconnectedness.
On November 14, a total of thirty-three people attended all or part of the a Zoom meeting to discuss the election and the way forward.
By way of opening the discussion, three questions were posed to the entire group:
- How are you feeling after the election?
- What can we do right now in order to best support each other?
- What can we do in the days and months ahead in order to move forward?
Here is a brief summary of responses to these questions:
1. Feelings after the election
People reported a wide array of emotional responses. Among them were feelings of being hurt, helpless, devastated, dumbfounded, disappointed, depressed, scared, sad, fearful, angry, frustrated, concerned, uncentered, frightened, and overcome with grief.
2. Supporting each other
Many shared their own personal coping strategies with the group. These included keeping up with their meditation practice, engaging in dharma reading, entering into conversations with acquaintances who voted for Trump and listening to them non-judgmentally, pursuing self-care, keeping in mind how little control we have in the short-term, staying connected with others as a means of taking care of ourselves, going out into nature, remembering that the country has been through very difficult times in the past, avoiding getting too attached to outcomes, focusing on the impermanent nature of everything, avoiding judgmental feelings, and nurturing the connections we already have with our friends and families.
Additionally, a number of people expressed appreciation for this meeting, as well as their hope that we would continue to meet in this format on a regular basis going forward.
3. Ideas for moving forward
Several proposals were offered, including: generating a list of trustworthy investigative journalists as a resource for staying reliably informed about what’s actually happening; compiling a second list of activist groups with whom we might align; and reaching out to other Buddhist groups in an effort to develop a broader coalition of engaged Buddhists.
A follow-up meeting to further discuss these proposals and other ideas has been scheduled for Thursday evening, December 5, at 7:00pm US EST.
To sign up for the meeting, click here. The Zoom link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5052592148.
4 Replies to “Post-election Meeting of SBN Community Members”
I greatly appreciated this meeting and getting to meet and sit with so many of you. Many thanks for our service.
The victory of Trump should not make us forget that the US is an advanced form of plutocracy and that many things will barely change, such as its genocidal policies in the Middle East.
My post-election feelings were of surprise, followed by deep curiosity. I spent the last 3 weeks searching for answers why the Democrats lost, and how the party can regain the trust and support of the American public.
(Canada is deeply divided politically as well, so many lessons to be learned for us as well).
Thankfully, it seems that the era of bitter political division is now making way for the need for deep and meaningful conversations with all Americans .
Finding trusted sources of information is vital, and I have found the following (after much research and many conversations with both my Republicans and Democrats friends while I was in South Carolina this past month):
Mark Halperin (former political director for ABC news) has brought forth a eloquent, balanced and thoughtful answers as to why the Dems were defeated (in recent podcasts with Chris Cuomo).
Mark also hosts this free weekly program called 2Way (https://www.2way.tv/).
“2WAY is a new, interactive live video platform devoted to unique conversations, unbiased discourse, and open debate. Our community of contributors engage in two-way conversations with users about today’s events, politics, and big issues, absent the one-sided partisanship and angry rhetoric that have come to dominate the discourse around current events on social media and cable news.”
I truly believe forward progress can be best achieved with thoughtfully understanding the perspectives and needs of people from all sides of the political spectrum, as challenging as this may sometimes feel.
Thank you.
I find that most of all I want to clarify for myself what is happening. This prompts me to think historically, to look at the historical residues of fascist ‘captures’ of liberal societies under capitalism. When I was young I loved the thinking of the Italian marxist Antonio Gramsci, who developed analytic tools for exploring fascist domination during his imprisonment in the 1920s and 30s under the dictatorship of Mussolini. So I’m reading Gramsci’s again. Re-visiting concepts such as cultural hegemony and the interplay of consent and coercion in capitalist politics, and looking at the conditions of my situation through these historical lenses.
As Rev. Dr William Barber of the Poor Peoples Coalition recently said about the 2024 election, the Democrats threw the working poor under the bus. This brings to mind that Gramsci was deeply concerned to clarify the roles of different kinds of intellectuals in capitalist societies. “Traditional” intellectuals claim to be disinterested, ideologically unallied, and to transmit past knowledge into present understandings—understandings which however fit seamlessly into the popular ‘common sense’ of capitalist culture. “Organic” intellectuals arise from within their class—capitalist or working—and remain rooted in cultural and political struggles of their class interests. Witnessing Trump’s appointments of functionaries to his incoming government, I see that he is elevating fascist ‘elites’ to displace the liberal ‘elites’ of the last administration, and that these intellectuals of the right and left are rooted in capitalist class interests.
At the conclusion of Revamp, Winton looks at what a transition to socialism might look like—what kind of society might emerge. Reading this, I kept wondering how the ethics of care arises under capitalism? Now I think it arises in the formation of small, voluntary civic organizations where participants learn how to care for and protect one another. How can coalitions of Buddhist and leftist intellectual leadership within our capitalist society comprise a middle way (perhaps Mike’s new book addresses this? I just received my copy and wonder if there is any interest in forming a reading group on Mindful Solidarity in light of the election?)