Hanging onto hope
On the eve of Donald Trump's second term as American President, a sobering reflection on my evolving emotions from prior Inauguration Days.
Sixteen years ago, on January 20th, the morning Barack Obama was soon to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, I began by treating it as just another day. I showered, had breakfast, kissed my wife and 5-year-old twin children goodbye, and drove to my office.
A few hours later, I was jolted with the realization: this isn’t just another day. I put my work on hold and drove home to witness, on our laptop computer,1 history in the making. Here was this young, energetic, charismatic and idealistic man—our first Black President—becoming our nation’s leader.
I knew Obama didn’t walk on water—I was still miffed at some of his positions and actions, like endorsing a political hack in Cook County a few months earlier. But after a fraught history scarred by slavery and oppressive racism, it felt like our nation had turned an important corner toward a new, more hopeful, more aspirational era.
My feeling about our national political scene: excitement.
Fast-forward eight years, to 2017, and I had gone from a spectator of political goings-on to a full-fledged participant.
By that time, fueled in part by the enthusiasm engendered by Obama’s example, I had decided to run and gotten elected to my community’s library board. Nearing the end of my four-year term, I was now campaigning for a seat on the local high school board2.
The run was spurred on, partly, by the election of Donald Trump two months earlier—as a reaction against him.
That Election Night in November 2016, I was in Las Vegas, a surreal place for a longtime Midwesterner to find himself at that historic moment.
Beneath the glow of the Vegas Strip’s neon and gigantic television screens displaying the impossible election return numbers, I was perplexed and aghast at his election—an apoplexy since exceeded only by Trump’s election two months ago.
Before that night, I’d been on the fence about running for school board. Trump’s election sealed the deal for me—I had to run. More than ever, I felt it was imperative for as many civic-minded, decent people of character3 to respond to this elevation of such a cynical, corrupt and contemptible figure to our nation’s highest public office.
My feeling about our national political scene: engagement.
And now, somehow, it’s 2025—a date that seems futuristic every time I see the calendar. As far as the national political moment is concerned, I’m in a markedly different place than 2009 and 2017.
I haven’t retreated into a shell, but when our President-elect’s name pops up in a headline, I can only stay with the story for so long before I have to look away. It's much like my strategy for squinting only vaguely at trailers for the latest horror film that I’ll never, ever be paid enough to see.
So much about this man is so rancorous and so ridiculous that, for my own mental health, I’ve largely tuned the madness—and him—out. Obama had his Audacity of Hope; I’ve got my Capacity of Nope.
So it might not come as a surprise that in two days, I have no plans to watch the inauguration. A trip to the art museum is in the works, then there’s the college football championship that night.
My feeling about our national political scene: estrangement.
It’s a temporary condition. As these past 16 years have demonstrated, my regard for the state of politics nationally has been in a state of flux.
If the 2009 model of Matt Baron had been launched 16 years into the future, he wouldn’t believe how drastically things have changed. Then again, if my current self could have visited that cozy family scene around the laptop 16 years ago, maybe I’d have found the heart to nudge my younger, more naive self.
“Hey, Matt,” I’d have whispered. “There’s a lot lurking beneath the surface. Not everything is as it seems.”
On the opposite end of my optimism/pessimism spectrum, that’s almost surely the case this time around, too. A second round of Trump won't be as wretched as his most vocal critics warn, can it?
Yes, I'm still hanging onto hope.
Why a laptop and not a TV? This was a little over midway through our 20-year period without a television set. Credit for this photo of our kids: Bridgett Baron.
I was elected 2 1/2 months later to a four-year term that mirrored my children’s high school years. We “graduated” together when I decided one term was plenty enough.
I realize that I fall short in perfectly fitting that lofty “civic-minded, decent person of character” description. Truly, though, at least I make an authentic attempt.