Janie B. Cheaney: Resilience, resignation, and a touch of hope

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 27th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Earlier this month, WORLD commentator Janie B Cheaney was holding her breath, waiting to see what would happen after the election. Here’s her take as she and the country exhale a bit.

JANIE B CHEANEY, COMMENTATOR: I wasn’t worried. It’s a sin to worry. And besides you don’t get to be my age without some degree of sangfroid about election results. Twenty years and five of “the most consequential elections of our time” have numbed this jaded old soul.

But I was concerned. The hysterical rhetoric had ramped up especially hard during the last three cycles involving a certain bull who decided to go china-shopping. No matter who won, Trump or Harris, chaos in the streets seemed a not-inconceivable outcome.

But maybe the general public is as rhetoric-weary as me. I’ve seen the usual celebrities promising to wash their hands of the USA, and a few have actually followed through, but most journalists and politicos have seen the light of inevitability and are regrouping around it. At least that seems to be the general tone of the left-wing publications I surveyed last week. Here’s a sampling of headlines:

The Nation lead article, dated November 21st: “Bury the #Resistance Once and for All.” Well said.

From The Atlantic, a piece titled “Washington Is Shocked” takes politicians to task for being surprised at what it calls Trump’s destructive ways, but advises them to dig in and do some old fashioned politicking. Then Atlantic goes back to eclectic topics like “A Ridiculous, Perfect Way to Make Friends” and “Your Armpits Are Trying to Tell You Something.”

Over at New Republic, we get the king of grimace-and-bear-it advice in this headline: “The Case for Ignoring Trump’s Daily Rage-Bait” More sober is “Trump’s Election is a Disaster for the Climate—and an Opportunity,” which raises alarm but offers hope for saviors of the planet. Also, “Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy Reveal Secret Weapon to Wreck Government,” but forewarned is forearmed, right?

Author David Corn at Mother Jones’s strikes a balance with: “The Media and Trump: Not Resistance, but not Acceptance.” Sounds reasonable to me.

American Prospect asks, “What Now? Examining the Way Forward after 2024.”

In other words, politics as usual. There’s kvetching about cabinet picks and policies, but that’s democracy for you. Democracy has risen from its doomsday deathbed, pulled up its socks, stretched its tendons, and headed for the gym. It’s gearing up for another round of knock-down drag-out politics, and that’s as it should be.

Even my progressive Facebook friends are getting on with their lives. After Trump’s first election in 2016 they were wringing their hands, professing shock about their racist, sexist neighbors, and posting resistance memes. Now, rather than “We Resist” it’s “We’re Resigned.” One friend posted a picture of a church marquee reading, “This too shall pass. It may pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.” Another found comfort in quoting Sam Gamgee from Lord of the Rings: “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”

Bless your hearts, my fellow Americans, on both sides. It looks like we still have a country and a peaceful transition of power, thank the Lord. It may not be morning in America, but it’s not midnight either.

I’m Janie B Cheaney.

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