Can Writers Help Save America?

Let's Make Democracy Boring Again

I just received the following message (paraphrased) from a fellow Michigan writer, Ellen Stone.

I am feeling so worked up about the speed with which we seem to be losing democracy. I wonder if there’s anything we writers can do… Like a protest reading somewhere soon? Other ideas? I am writing letters and calling daily and going to protests and posting on Facebook

Yes! This is what we are asking ourselves. We writers write, and so the answer might be obvious. We need to write about our concerns on social media and to friends; we need to write to senators and representatives voicing our opinions. Because we are writers, we write well, and so our complaints should be written better than the average complaint.

But beyond that, don’t we have some super powers that can make us even more effective? After all, writers are people who sit alone and think for long periods of time without being brainwashed by television. Often we are educated and thoughtful. In many ways we have become either philosophers or psychologists or both.

Thank you, Linda Sienkiewicz for this image! Check out her work at https://lindaksienkiewicz.com/

I have been agonizing over writing a big essay about this topic, but as I write at length, everything I come up with turns slippery on me, as the political situation changes moment to moment. For example I never thought I’d live in a time when being well-read and educated and healthy was considered by many to be a negative thing. At one turn, I think humor is the key to dealing with this, and then when the situation worsens, humor falls flat.

Therefore, I think I will write a couple of shorter posts. And I hope you will comment and create a conversation for your fellow friends and writers, sharing information that you think we should have.

At the risk of being really boring, I’ll say …

As a fiction writer, I think a lot about audience. Over time, I have made myself very aware of how what I am writing will be received by the reader I am targeting.

When I’m writing literary fiction, I know my reader will encounter my work with a nuanced sense of the world, and if I even tell readers in a story what I am also showing them, they will be annoyed. Also, literary readers tend to be more open-minded about the lives of people different from them, and they are not likely to condemn others who are different from them or from the mainstream. Literary readers are an empathetic group.

Usually, I am writing for an audience of literary writers, but on my FB page, I write in a different way that might reach people who don’t usually read books, or not my books anyway. Some of the people on my page even say un-subtle and non-nuanced things like “Get rid of all those bums in Washington, drain the swamp,” and “immigrants are destroying our country,” though they have never seen an immigrant commit a crime outside of a Fox News opinion piece.

If I’m writing to get my own side riled up to take action, then I don’t necessarily have to be circumspect. I won’t have to explain where I’m coming from and why.

If I see myself only as an artist, then I should work to be as compelling as possible in a timeless, artistic way. My husband does this, simply says the cleverest, wisest thing about the situation at all times.

But I also want to be able to communicate with my friends who come from the others side of the political spectrum, and so I try to resist venting on my FB page, because it will just inflame those folks and cause them to respond with anger and then there will be more anger and hatred and no progress being made toward creating a conversation about democracy and therefore less chance we can save it.

Though I sometimes fail, I try to keep a cool head and try to make my case to everyone why I stand where I stand on issues that I believe we all (pretty much) agree on, such as saving Medicaid for kids, preserving our National Parks, and veterans’ benefits, and to convince them there is no need to throw out babies with the bathwater.

I don’t always get this right. In fact, just today I put up a post that I thought was funny about a certain advisor being on drugs (as is documented in his background and as seems obvious in the recent videos with weird sunglasses and a chainsaw), and it took me several edits to make it have the right tone. And then I deleted the whole thing and put up a new version rather than having my edits available for perusal. Then I deleted it again.

I edit my novels hundreds of times, usually to make a story more exciting and outrageous. When I edit social media posts, though it seems I’m editing to make them MORE boring.

Similarly, when I write to my Republican Representative, I try to keep in mind how he views the situation. I know his position because he sends me his newsletter. I imagine (hope?) that, apart from the current insanity, he is a person of conscience and conviction trying to keep his job with a different idea about American democracy. And since part of his job is to take into account the views of his constituents—even those who disagree with him—it is my obligation to let him know how I feel.

Though he is not currently doing his job of taking my opposing view into account, I will only say so in the gentlest way. I am hopeful that at some point, the Honorable Bill H. will decide to stand up for what’s right, if only for the issues he used to champion, such as supporting farmers and veterans and in not vilifying Canadians. And he will have my calls and emails to support him when he does decide to do the right thing. I try to begin every communication with him by mentioning that I am aware of his good work.

I’ve been seeing on social media how quickly folks are to attack senators and representatives, and I’m guessing that the folks with power are likely to simply ignore those messages.

I’ve noticed that many citizens are verbally hostile to those senators and representatives, including those on their own side of the political spectrum, violently accusing them of not doing their jobs and not doing enough. I noticed it especially on (Michigan) Senator Elissa Slotkin’s posts, that people are very quick to criticize and express their rage to her. It worries me that even liberal democrats use harsh language toward women who let them down. Yes, I do think they treat Slotkin more harshly than our other Michigan senator, Gary Peters.

I have a lot more to say in future posts, hopefully some of which is not boring, but that is all I’ll say in this post, that audience matters. Ask yourself if you are trying to change the mind of folks who don’t agree with you or are you trying to work your own side up to act. Or are you brilliant like my husband, who can inspire with his cleverness. Are you trying to make peace or war with your words? As a writer, you have the ability to do either.

If you are trying to convince the other side, you may have to let yourself be a little boring. Yes, boring! Democracy itself, when operating correctly, is boring; productive meetings of citizens are dull, and that is how it should be. When things get too exciting, like right now, that is when there is a problem. We need excitement for our great works of art, but I’d like American Democracy to be dull again.

Please share any thoughts you all have! Please share organizations that you know about that are working on this, helping writers effectively resist the brutality of the new administration and the gutting of our country to benefit billionaires.

(Ellen Stone, mentioned above, is a Michigan poet, and she has a new book of poems out. Click here.)