Day 0 (Part 3) – Fear and Loathing

The drive home from Parkersburg, West Virginia took two-and-a-half days, replacing a walk that should have lasted another four-and-a-half months. I took the most direct approach. At times, that brought me in line with towns I would have encountered along the walk–Logan, OH, North Platte, NE, Twin Falls, ID. The whole final approach, along I84 through Oregon, was a persistent reminder of what I had lost. After a whirlwind of movement–2500 miles in the blink of an eye–truly, America’s interstate system is the best way to travel the country while seeing none of it–I walked through my front door and stopped. Two weeks of quarantine, two weeks of vacillating between self-doubt and certainty, two weeks of staring at the wall and idly reading. 

I was fine, but that was a shallow sense of satisfaction propped up by an intrusive numbness. Everything about this walk had gone marvelously–no physical ailments, lots of positive personal encounters, a seamless first segment on the ADT’s southern route, and then unbelievably accommodating weather when departing from the East Coast in late winter. And despite all of that, it was over, for reasons far outside my power.

Nonetheless, I got over it. My loss was real, but the broader impact of the coronavirus was staggering, and the horror only grew as the pandemic’s net spread further and further. Besides, I settled into a productive routine. I stayed with my mom for the better part of a month, I jogged on the beach, I even managed to write the first draft of a new guidebook. The persistent background noise of cable news offered a constant reminder of how bad things were, but I was snugly immersed in a privileged bubble. Indeed, for most of April I rarely thought about the suspended walk. The day-to-day was more than enough.

——————

In my last post from the road, when I wrote about suspending the walk, I drew a comparison between 9/11 and the coronavirus. It was more inevitable than perceptive–some had already linked the events and the comparisons have only grown in the weeks since–but it was the most accessible language of cataclysm that I had at my disposal. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the aftermath of 9/11 over the last month. Hell, I’ve been thinking about the aftermath of 9/11 pretty consistently since 9/11. I’ve taught classes on the subject. My friend Greg and I launched a multi-year initiative called The Legacy Project focused on taking students to post-conflict societies to learn from how they rebuilt after tragedy, in part to better inform how we in the US could better respond to this defining tragedy. And the reality is clear–we had ample room for improvement in our collective response.

Many Americans fondly recall the strong assertion of collective unity following 9/11. Certainly, there were many occasions in which people of all different backgrounds came together, in mourning and hope, eager to comfort and care for their fellows.

At the same time, though, there was a collective paralysis. Americans all across the country were frozen on their couches, watching cable news recycle the same speculation–and the same scarring images–for hour after hour. One didn’t need to be in New York or DC to be traumatized by the attacks; on the contrary, consistent exposure to the media coverage was more than enough.

I’ve been reading Corey Robin’s Fear: The History of a Political Idea, and his discussion of the collective response to 9/11 is particularly striking. Pundits collectively rebuked FDR’s notion that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” On the contrary, they asserted, we should embrace this fear as a righteous cleanser. Frank Rich argued that, as horrific as 9/11 was, it awoke us from a “frivolous if not decadent decadelong dream.” David Brooks, meanwhile, wrote that the fear would “wash away a lot of the self-indulgence” of recent years. Christopher Hitchens offered a statement that feels particularly staggering from a distance and yet generated a lot of sagacious nods 15 years ago: “I should perhaps confess that on September 11 last, once I had experienced all the usual mammalian gamut of emotions, from rage to nausea, I also discovered that another sensation was contending for mastery. On examination, and to my own surprise and pleasure, it turned out to be exhilaration.”

The problem, it turns out, is that our country leading into 9/11 had become purposeless and decadent. The solution, the Wise Pundits asserted, was the nourishing power of fear generated by 9/11. 

In response to that, Robin offers an extended rebuttal from Michael Ignatieff: “In the twentieth century, the idea of human universality rests less on hope than on fear, less on optimism about the human capacity for good than on dread of human capacity for evil, less on a vision of man as maker of his history than of man the wolf toward his own kind… A century of total war has made victims of us all, civilians and military, men, women, and children alike.”

A society that ennobles fear is a traumatized one. 

——————-

As April turned to May, I found myself sucked back into the news cycle, as the opening weeks of triage transitioned to broader discussions of possible paths to re-entry. It would, of course, be erroneous to argue that we were collectively united at any point in this process; our federal leadership has failed us to a staggering degree. Many states and cities have made good faith efforts to manage the crisis, though, and the American people have bought into social distancing initiatives to a very high degree. People have rallied behind healthcare providers and other first responders. For all of the challenges created by chaos and petulance at the top, many Americans have risen to the occasion.

Unfortunately, the lack of a coherent collective strategy has placed us in an alarming position. As other countries start to bounce back, we face persistent death totals and infection rates, with New York’s improvements masking deteriorating conditions in many other places. Americans were willing to buy into social distancing and stay-at-home orders for weeks; as that shifts to months, we are fraying at the seams.

We are held hostage by fear in the midst of this. It would be wrong, though, to see fear as an irrational, incidental manifestation. This is a political fear, a tactical fear, a most intentional fear.

Before the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe, a staggering 59% of Americans were living paycheck-to-paycheck, a consequence of a half-century of growing inequality in this country. More than half of Americans have no safety net, nothing to fall back on. Quarantine is difficult for many. What does it mean, though, when you are carrying debt, when you have no savings, when you can’t afford the next month’s rent, when your kids are hungry? What comfort comes from a $1200 check that might show up in the next two months, or from frozen rents that are certain to all come due in the summer, merely delaying an inevitable eviction? Many in this position are still working, facing a dangerous world in low-paying jobs, and sometimes bringing contagion back to their homes, most notably in the virus-ravaged meatpacking industry. (Never mind the humanitarian crisis in prisons, most horrifically in Arkansas, where prison staff who have tested positive are allowed to return to work!) 

Those of us with resources–savings, retirement plans, stable homes, jobs we are confident will survive this crisis–are suffering, too. It’s painful, after working so hard, doing so many things the right way, to watch those numbers drop. Of course, the greatest fear is the loss of loved ones, and that has driven most of us to heartily embrace all social distancing initiatives. We sit at home, working online, dutifully living on Whole Foods delivered via Amazon, and other meals through Uber Eats. We’re following the rules and responsibly heap scorn on those who fail to uphold their social responsibilities.

And, in the midst of this, we watch cable news channels air provocative pieces on pro-opening protests, with small groups of Confederate Flag-waving, rifle-brandishing, MAGA-ites demanding that we be set free through work. They are, of course, the latest “very good people” to be saluted by the president.

In the process, though, we are allowing a false dichotomy to be established, fake sides being drawn that will shape a discourse that only serves those who have failed us to this point. Comfortable liberals generalize outward from these extreme cases to dismiss anyone advocating for any form of reopening as a callous grandma-killer, willing to sacrifice lives to the temple of the economy, reveling in the hypocrisy of suspected pro-lifers. As those liberals become more entrenched into this position, seizing onto more fundamentalist-pro-closure stances, they alienate a huge chunk of Americans who are truly in despair. 

Haven’t we been here before? 

——————–

A month ago, I thought my walk was over. I was at peace with it. As the world shifted over these last two weeks, though, I reconsidered. With states relaxing their stay-at-home orders — wisely or not — the door cracked open. When I realized I could still complete a coast-to-coast walk, that added fuel to the fire. It won’t be what I had envisioned, but given that I already walked Cincinnati to Denver in the fall, if I complete the section between Pennsboro and Cincinnati, I can skip ahead to Denver and push onto the Pacific within my timeframe. It’s possible.

Ultimately, though, I feel more driven than ever to be telling stories from the road. I’ve watched more cable news in the last month than I did in the past five years combined. It ends up being like 40% Trump, 10% Cuomo, 20% other stories from New York, 20% MAGA protests, and 10% everything else. And really, every story is ultimately about Trump. 

There is a chance for Americans to come together here, for us to find some collective solidarity, to recognize the sacrifices–highly unequal, but real–being demanded of us, but political fear is being wielded like a scalpel.

We absolutely should fear the coronavirus. I return to the road with a recognition of the risk I am taking on–for myself, for others around me–and I do so understanding that friends will condemn the decision. But we have to stop fearing each other.