Shellys commentary: Waiting
Waiting is a neutral term. It can be both powerfully good and powerfully bad. We have spent the last nine years of our retirement in a state of suspended waiting, not knowing what to expect, often dreading the news, anticipating the worst, and feeling we had little control. All too often we didn’t see the powerfully good things that waiting can bring. It felt like the proverbial shoe dropping.
In 2016 while we were waiting for the election results, we were afraid of being too hopeful or optimistic. From the beginning, we admittedly were not Trump supporters. There were too many red flags. Little did we realize that it was just the beginning of many waiting experiences. Ours was a society that was being forever changed, primarily by one man leading the way.
The four years of the Trump administration were grueling and unrelentless: Every day we waited for the next crisis, the next outrageous statement, the childish name-calling, for the next appointee to be indicted, for the next unbelievably crude and raucous rally, for the next tweet proclaiming victimhood, and for the next potential international incident. We were also waiting to hear something about his policies and his political vision, for he was the President of the United States. Actually, we didn’t have to wait all that long before it became obvious what his vision was and it was dangerous, which made our watchful waiting all the more obligatory.
This negative kind of waiting can take a toll on you. You watch way too much tv news, you find yourself in difficult exchanges with family or friends with whom you disagree. You find this waiting messing with your sleep and what were quiet, reflective times. This kind of waiting affects even your health, physical and emotional, for it requires persistent alertness to ever-pending dangers. This has proven not to be hyperbole.
While we were in a state of waiting for whatever would come next, there were a lot of people, who weren’t waiting. They went about their business, living their lives. Some were unabashedly his followers, who watched Fox for their news, while others could care less. Gradually the numbers of MAGA followers grew, as did his critics. Meanwhile, we waited for what would happen next.
Our waiting took a detour in 2020-2021, as we waited for other news – pandemic news, still with Trump in charge discrediting the experts. We waited to learn the latest number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. We waited for a vaccine. We waited as we dealt with our increased sense of isolation. We waited to see our friends, to go back to church or work. We couldn’t wait to not be waiting. We wanted our lives back.
Then we found we were waiting on more unsettling political news. Trump said the 2020 election had been stolen, that there had been voter fraud, election worker corruption, and on and on. It all became known as the “Big Lie.” Leading up to January 6th, 2021, Trump was on twitter calling for protests from his MAGA loyalists and other conspiracy followers, and they came to Washington to support their leader. Then it happened, and we waited minute by minute as the insurrectionists stormed the capitol. Trepidation turned to fear as we witnessed the assault on our democracy unfold. We were so close to losing it all. We waited for several hours for Trump to call them off, but he did not. We waited for the end to the violence. That night we waited for Pence to verify the election results and confirm that we had a new president, which he did.
We thought with a new administration the chaos would end, but it didn’t. Trump lost, but that definitely was not the end of it. We still weren’t done with our waiting: There were the January 6th hearings, the investigations into classified documents found at Mar-A-Lago and later documents found in the possession of Biden and Pence, and the federal and state prosecution cases against Trump’s alleged illegal behavior. We waited to see how the new Republican majority in the House would handle themselves in 2023. We didn’t have to wait long to find out.
We are grateful that the rule of law and the pursuit of justice will not be hurried, even if it means waiting for someone to be held accountable.
In the meantime, life goes on. Most of us don’t do waiting well. While we are waiting on the potential indictments, we’re going to focus on Spring and the garden and warm weather … at least for the time-being.
Walter Shelly retired after 40 years as a professor of political science at West Texas A&M University. Linda Shelly retired after 33 years of teaching sociology at West Texas A&M University and Amarillo College.
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Shellys commentary: Waiting
