Act Now to Avoid Lifelong Regret

Here's How

Ezra Klein, an otherwise fine columnist for the New York Times, offers in his latest column absolutely the worst advice possible as we face the Nov. 5 Presidential election.

His advice is so awful that it reminded me of one of the darkest movies of all time, The Garden of the Finzi Continis, an Academy Award winner in 1970 about the rise of Fascism in Europe that led to World War II.

The Finzi Contini family is wealthy and Jewish, and in a few short years they experience Jews being banned from the libraries, from professions—even earlier, banned from public spaces, including community tennis courts. 

The response of the Finzi Continis to being banned? They enjoy playing on their own private tennis court. And that typifies their response every time Fascism encroaches on their lives: to not fight back; to keep their head down; and to wait it out, thinking that their money will protect them from any serious inconvenience.

So it is an extraordinarily sad and shocking moment when the family is rounded up and imprisoned and stripped of everything they own, and their freedom, and their lives. The closing shot of the film is of their family tennis court, now abandoned, desolate, a monument to fools who thought they could keep playing tennis as the world around them burned.

This, however, is the exact future Ezra Klein is recommending in his closing paragraph of his Oct. 13 column:

“. . . Give yourself a break. Step off the emotional roller coaster. If you want to do something to affect the election, donate money or time in a swing state — ideally to a state party or down-ballot race, where your efforts will go further — or volunteer in a local race. Call anyone in your life who might actually be undecided or might not be registered to vote or might not make it to the polls. And then let go. There’s nothing more you can do, and nothing more the polls can do for you.”

Yes, Klein goes through the motions of saying you could do something, donate money or volunteer. 

But he does not particularly encourage it, much less make it seem like the imperative it is. 

He does not offer any specifics on where to help, even though there is no mystery that a handful of localities and a miniscule number of votes will decide our fate. 

He does not indicate that he, himself, is doing anything. He does not tell a story about someone who is doing anything. 

By not doing any of these things, what comes across is his fatalistic advice: “let go.” 

To my ear he is saying, sit back. Focus on other matters. Dial down your anxiety by self-administering the anesthetic of your choice. 

Worst of all, he’s saying that it’s completely reasonable to act like a bystander when there’s a 50-50 chance that Fascism will come to power. 

Readers: He’s wrong. You have choices; and acting as though you are a victim of forces beyond your control is the worst possible one. It’s not just immoral and naïve. It’s the opposite of what it means to live in a democracy, where in fact we have concrete, positive, practical actions within our power that can help stop Fascism before it comes to power.

If you want one example of the actions available to you, read my last Substack where I describe what’s happening in Philadelphia to scoop up and save votes one at a time, https://davefleischer.substack.com/p/the-next-20-days-could-swing-pennsylvania.

Photo: Magali Ortiz and Gaia Santoro Lecchini, two of our Philadelphia canvass leaders. Gaia saw this on a bus and it resonated with how she’s feeling: “Don’t agonize, organize.” Magali says, “Try this. Hope is refreshing.”

But whatever you do, don’t “let go.” Stand up for yourself and the people you love. For God’s sake, do something.

Because the threat is real. You already know this in your heart. Trump is ready and eager to be a cruel and vindictive dictator-in-chief. If we give him the chance, we can’t pretend to be surprised when we, ourselves, are hauled off the tennis courts—in our tennis whites—to whatever kind of hell Trump delivers.