The Disbelief I Didn't See Coming
Re-thinking Letters to My White Male Friends Four Years Later
[One week after an election that has left so many of us searching, I had the opportunity to speak with students at Bard College. These are the remarks that I shared with them.]
One of the things I’ve always found fascinating about writing a book is how it captures a snapshot of the author’s mindset at a specific moment. But this is also what makes writing inherently risky. The ink may dry, but time marches on, and the ideas on the page, once fresh, remain fixed. If fortune and foresight align, those ideas will resonate beyond their time. But writing binds us to that moment; what we thought then might come back to haunt us later, urging us to reinterpret, reframe, and adjust our words as the world around us changes and as we evolve.
Frederick Douglass spent a lifetime rewriting his life story. In 1845, he published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, which, published seven years after his escape, made him a leading abolitionist by framing his story principally around his years in bondage. Ten years later, he wrote My Bondage and My Freedom, an expanded account of his experience and a meditation on the institution of slavery. Finally, in 1881 and then again in 1892, Douglass published The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, updating and, in some instances, re-mixing his backstory to reflect his evolving ideas and the historical events he had witnessed, among them the Civil War and Reconstruction. Each act of revision was a bold reinterpretation of his past through the lens of a different man at a different point in his life. Then again, most authors aren’t also world-historical figures.
In the weeks and days leading up to meeting with you to talk about The Culture of Disbelief, one of the essays from my 2021 book, Letters to My White Male Friends, I found myself reflecting on the person I was in the fall of 2020.
I finished that book on the night of the 2020 election and turned it in just before Joe Biden’s victory was announced. Over the next two months, I watched a country already ravaged by COVID-19 nearly combust over the controversies surrounding the election results. I had just moved to DC and was living a mere four miles or so from the Capitol when news of the insurrection reached me through concerned friends worried about my family’s safety. By then, the galleys were being printed. And while I considered adding an essay on the simmering backlash symbolically set in motion by the insurrection or perhaps authoring an editorial to stir up interest in my upcoming book, I ultimately decided against it. The air was already too thick with hot takes and “thought” pieces. I didn’t want to be yet another pundit weighing in on what seemed obvious to so many of us: that this country lacks the patience to sit still and learn from its past to forge new futures. We are a restless nation preoccupied with our exceptionalism, our divinely ordained specialness, and our personal grievances regarding our perceived right to rule the world or at least shape it in our image—a stance fundamentally at odds with the humility required to own our troubled backstory. Ownership requires humility. It demands that we commit to something different.
In retrospect, my naivety is clear. I wanted to believe we were ready to face the real challenges of our era—climate change, technological upheaval, inequality—instead of slipping back into the clutches of our ancient tribal obsessions. On this point, I can concede that the aspirations that inspired the book have been unfulfilled. If anything, I would say that they have been actively rejected. What I and others dared to propose—that white supremacy is a cancer that diminishes us all—has been returned to sender.
And so here I am, enduring my own sense of disbelief, asking myself how this happened.
For the past year, I’ve been painstakingly researching the Cold War for a new book. The period after World War II, especially the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, strikes me as a cautionary tale of the times we are living in. The atomic bomb had unleashed an existential terror the likes of which had never been known on earth, while its successor, the hydrogen bomb, was a staggering 1,000 times more destructive. Most of Europe remained in ruins. Japan was still in shock. Korea and Germany had been partitioned into American and Soviet outposts. The rest of the world was reeling too. India had gained independence from Britain but was mired in religious conflict. Apartheid was just beginning its odious reign in South Africa.
The United States had emerged as the decisive superpower, but that didn’t mean our dominance went uncontested. The Soviet Union was determined to seize its share of the spoils by whatever means. Meanwhile, American labor was at odds with big business over wages. Inflation, both globally and domestically, was through the roof. It didn’t help matters that many Americans still had stark memories of breadlines and Hoovervilles and were therefore partial to an economic system that, on the surface at least, promised something for all rather than the most for a privileged few.
Angst was already choking the air when word of the first Soviet atomic bomb test launched the nuclear arms race in late August of 1949. A mere six weeks later, mainland China fell to communism. For a nation traumatized by two world wars and a depression in a thirty-year span, and for people who just wanted to buy new cars and shop for groceries without ration tickets, the totalitarian threat embodied by Russia and China was an intolerable evil. Richard Nixon, Joe McCarthy, and a re-energized J. Edgar Hoover arose as America’s anti-fascist brigade. They harnessed the angst and fear of middle America, funneling it toward a singular enemy—communism. They promised to restore American virtue; to make everything “okay”; to return the country to a placidity that had never existed for anyone who looked like me. These men told their ever-growing legion of followers that communists lurked everywhere, wanting to take over the country, impose un-American values on the rest of us, and strip away freedoms. They stirred up fear by association, manufactured bogeymen, created lists, files, and roving inquisitions, and exploited the new medium of television to put on show trials. To be a good American meant spying on your neighbors. Looking back, in many ways, the fascism that the country had just spent untold resources defeating on four continents had come home to roost. And yet, most Americans didn't see it that way.
In the depths of the National Archives, like an unmarked grave, I found one of the most compelling—and frankly chilling—documents I have ever encountered. It’s a 183-page report titled “A Study of Witch-Hunting and Mass Hysteria in America,” submitted to President Truman on October 31, 1949, by Brigadier General Robert B. Landry. Inscribed on the document is a note from Truman himself: “This is the President’s copy. Please return it when you have read it,” signed simply, “H.S.T.”—Harry S. Truman.
It is a sweeping study that connects America's cycles of “nativist” paranoia—such as the Salem Witch Trials and the Know Nothing movement in the 1840s—to its foundational DNA. General Landry argued that because of who came to the country’s shores—religious outliers, persecuted minorities, and general malcontents—and who continues to come—those seeking a better way of life than the one they left behind—America has naturally become a hotbed for non-conformity.
That non-conformity can take many forms, but the anti-establishment anti-hero is a particularly appealing figure in the American psyche. The anti-hero bucks the system. He (and let’s be clear, only men are allowed to play this role) symbolizes freedom, defiance, and resistance to unjust systems. He carves his own path on the open frontier, rejecting societal norms and rules to pursue his version of success or justice. His flaws, struggles, and moral ambiguity make him all the more relatable.
According to Landry, the framers knew that harnessing this non-conformist spirit was the key to the survival of a liberal democracy, so they invested in the people the power to change the law of the land via constitutional amendment to meet the evolving needs of the day. However, in periods of national stress, our collective soft spot for the non-conformist spirit, coupled with our predilection for mass hysteria, can be weaponized by those with their own agendas—usually to halt the liberalism and progress the framers envisioned as necessary for a healthy democracy to survive—into a crusade or mass movement, with aims that are the exact opposite of freedom. By twisting the non-conformist logic into an apotheosis of anti-establishmentarianism, these powerful forces gin up such fear within Americans that they—we—comply with demands for containment and control—the hallmarks of early-stage fascism—as a necessity.
In Landry’s 1949 view, the global struggle between democracy and communism—the Cold War—provided the backdrop and bulwark for the latest wave of mass hysteria. He believed that at least some conservatives in government were using the Soviet threat to “pervert the tense concern of the people into a veritable ‘witch-hunt’ directed at every semblance of liberalism as it appears.” Ultimately, Landry felt that the government should stay out of the hysteria, and, for his part, Truman mostly agreed. But by then, Senator Joe McCarthy was a national hero, House Un-American Activities Committee hearings were the hottest ticket in town, and Truman’s own loyalty program had purged thousands of suspected communists, including those considered sexual deviants (aka gay), from government. It’s little surprise, then, that General Landry’s prophetic report was buried.
If I were to update Letters to My White Male Friends, I’d weave Landry’s insights into my chapter on disbelief, connecting the weaponization of hysteria to the way white supremacy feeds off that disbelief. I would argue that Donald Trump’s campaign tapped into our non-conformist spirit—our determination not to be told what to believe or do, especially by those who might know better—and merged it with white supremacy’s primal fixation on preserving entitlements for white Americans at all costs. Whether it was conspiratorial notions about science, replacement theory, immigration, climate, interest rates, consumer prices, the “deep state,” or DEI, he wrangled all the indignation that fuels entitled Americans’ contempt for facts and objective truths that don’t align with their gut instincts under one carnival tent of hysterical grievance. In his world, “woke” became the new “Red.” “Equity” was recast as an “un-American,” subversive strategy—a lie—to divide Americans and steal their country. In his warped reality, the very people whose ancestors were systematically excluded from participating in our democracy became the new totalitarians. The trio of Black prosecutors in New York and Georgia holding him to task for breaking the law—Tish James, Alvin Bragg, and Fani Willis—fit neatly into this narrative. In his bizarre world of double standards and blind eyes, they symbolize oppressors seeking to make good, hardworking Americans conform to a way of life they didn’t sign up for, one that forces them to use pronouns and gender-neutral bathrooms. We are the anti-progress Marxists holding America back from its greatness, and only they, the white saviors and the bamboozled Black and Brown folks along for the ride, can preserve the republic. And in this way, he and those who follow him are not conservatives but the true inheritors of liberty. For now, at least, their argument has won.
If I were to update the book, I would expose the culture that supports disbelief more systematically. Culture is not just a term of art. It is not something undefined and ephemeral—a thing you know when you see it but can’t define the dimensions of. A vibe. Culture is a set of practices, norms, and rituals that have been built over time on a foundation of values and beliefs. I attempted to use the justice system to illustrate how disbelief is embedded in and manifested, but I think I failed to extend my analysis far and deep enough. Culture is also the interconnected web of institutions that produce the knowledge that supports disbelief, media, and perhaps, more importantly, social outlets that spread or fail to combat the disbelief, along with charismatic influencers who peddle disbelief to their followers. Culture is every bit an organized, self-reinforcing system.
If I were to update the book, I would acknowledge that white supremacy is more deeply ingrained in and attached to the American mythos than I had allowed myself to believe. Four years ago, I think I still believed, or desperately wanted to believe, that when presented with the unvarnished truth, people would see the error of their ways and come around. I can admit that I had no idea white supremacy could twist treason into executive privilege, distort the Constitution to enable criminality, rationalize mendacity, and even go so far as to turn villainy into a virtue, transforming an obvious outlaw into the ultimate anti-hero. In the book, I point out that signs of defiance or unwillingness to cooperate have been used to systematically justify the exclusion of Black people from jury service. I forgot that, like so many things in this country, defiance is only a threat when we show it. Defiance displayed by white supremacy’s idealized anti-hero is yet another symbol of his character, another reason to root for his cause. And I missed this because I failed to fully appreciate that white supremacy (and its handmaiden, patriarchy) is willing to debase its own institutions if doing so means holding onto power in the short term.
Finally, if I were to update the book, I would acknowledge that disbelief cuts both ways. As I watched the election results come in and the map turn into a smear of red, I realized that my own disbelief—my willful refusal to see this country for what it truly is—had let me indulge in the fantasy that a different outcome was possible. Yet, the reality was that this result had been set in motion not just in recent months or years, but centuries ago. It wasn’t so much that I had ignored the other side or failed to perceive its perspective; it was that I thought, however naively, that there were standards of conduct below which decent people who believe our flawed democracy is still better than the alternatives would never allow themselves to stoop. In short, I thought that character still mattered. I am willing to admit that I was wrong. Not about everything and everyone. I have been telling anyone who will listen that I am at least clearer now about who my allies are. But last Tuesday night has permanently altered me. It is a trauma that will likely haunt me for the rest of my life.
Yet, even as the doomsday scenario I’d dreaded since Biden’s June debacle came into view, I found solace in a memory of the insurrection. Back then, I had turned off the television, put my phone on do not disturb, and did the only thing I could think to do. While Trump’s hysterical sycophants were scaling the Capitol’s walls, storming its chambers, taking selfies, and kicking their feet up on congressional desks just a few miles down the road, I went for a run. I headed to the end of my block and entered Rock Creek Park, the 1,750 acres of footpaths and horse trails established by Congress in 1890 as a public sanctuary in the Nation’s Capital. To my mild surprise, I wasn’t alone. People were out, walking their dogs, getting their daily jog in. When I passed a young couple holding hands, I imagined an entire story about their lives together. It gave me sincere comfort.
When my 5 AM alarm went off on Wednesday morning, I thought about sleeping in. I wanted nothing more. In fact, I felt I was entitled to an extra hour or two after the brutality I’d endured. But I remembered how it occurred to me on that run nearly four years back that even in times of national stress, even as chaos reigns, people fall in love. Babies are born. Joy and laughter abound. This isn’t about ignoring the world or not seeing it for what it is. I’m past that now. It’s about not letting it consume our dreams, not allowing it to claim all of our precious time on this planet. It’s about not reacting to every breaking news headline, every erratic statement on X, every note of White House gossip. It’s about remembering the stock from which I come. My ancestors survived far worse than Donald Trump. Their sacrifices, resilience, and triumph made my life possible. It’s okay to feel dread and despair, but I would not be here if they had buckled under duress. And so I got up and got on with the day.
Later, after I broke the news to my five-year-old daughter and sent energy and encouragement to the leaders I support—knowing they would need to find the words to uplift their teams—I received a text from my oldest friend in the world. It’s from the O.G. stoic, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, and I offer it to you in closing because I found quiet comfort in its equanimity:
“Evil: the same old thing. No matter what happens, keep this in mind: It’s the same old thing, from one end of the world to the other. It fills the history books, ancient and modern, and the cities, and the houses too. Nothing new at all. Familiar, transient.”
Stay strong. Fight on.