America in the Margins

The countryside is peaceful; beautiful in a mournful kind of way. The plowed fields unravel like long brown ribbons on the sleepy hills between Sherbrooke and New Hampshire. Then, on Interstate 93, approaching Boston, a yellow and brilliant autumn is still desperately clinging to the trees.

Turn to Massachusetts, before the Frankenstorm. A place of pipe dreams and of legends on which the grand mythical principles that now guide America were founded.

An uncertain, disappointed, exasperated America that is self-examining, ruminating, as the presidential election nears.

On the radio, she’s fantasizing about how the Cold War isn’t over yet. The Cars, Def Leppard and John Cougar Mellencamp share the airwaves, bringing us back to those crazy years of hair bands. Switch to another station — same repertoire. And switch, and switch… the only thing convincing me I hadn’t crossed some sort of space/time portal when I crossed the border was the 21st-century cars and the 2012 electoral campaign ads. Most of them are against Obama, and are often paid for by third parties, not the Republican Party. Many of them play the same tune, their favorite one being: I voted for him last time, but I was disappointed — he offered his product and didn’t deliver.

It’s almost as if America is in limbo. Awakened from the nightmare that was Iraq, sure. But incapable of dreaming since? Also true. And it isn’t the electoral campaign that’s going to help. It’s no longer a question of hope, like in 2008. The economic crisis that seemingly has no end has erased such grand ideas. In the mind of many of the country’s citizens, those who aspire to rule the country are mainly focused on flexing their muscles and playing hardball.

“It’s a dirty campaign, made up of attacks, of dirty play,” say Tina and Brenda, a couple of hours later in the Beantown Pub, located in downtown Boston. In their mid-20s and students of communications and architecture, they share the same feelings as others I talk to throughout the week: a troubled exasperation. “I will not vote,” says Tina. “I don’t see why I would; it seems to me that they both answer to the same mandates, that it’s never a question of people, ideas or this country’s future.” Brenda will vote — for Obama. She found the president’s horses and bayonets joke from the night before funny, but she also deplores the absence of a real debate.

But what exactly would you want them to talk about, ladies? They shrug their shoulders piteously, unable to answer me.

At 69 years old, Rosanne, from Fort Wayne, Indiana, isn’t any more enthusiastic. “This campaign, it’s a real mud fight,” she says. “Other than that, there’s nothing, and certainly no facts.”

“We can’t tell what’s true anymore. I’m going to nullify my vote,” says her friend Shirley, of Grafton, Ohio. “They all disgust me.”

The billion spent by each candidate to finance their campaigns doesn’t help their cases. Even in the business world, this money orgy is repugnant. “I think electing Mitt Romney would have positive repercussions,” says Peter, 51 years old and a headhunter in the financial sector. “The economy needs a break, and right now, everything’s uncertain. Businesspeople are worried that the health care system [Obamacare] will cost them; they’re hesitant to invest and to hire personnel. Electing Romney would at least have a positive psychological effect on the sector, and then on the economy…”

“But you, what do you think?” It’s funny; they all turned the question back to me.

I found the beginning of my answer to this question with Hunter S. Thompson. During the primaries in 1972, the gonzo master was, conveniently, on Interstate 93. Like me, he crossed the White Mountains toward Boston. But while I have to suffer through Journey and Foreigner on the radio, he quoted T.S. Eliot: “Between the idea and the reality […] falls the shadow.”

And that’s what I think: America is in the dark. On the verge of grand ideas that, sometimes, are blinding, because they create expectations that can only lead to disappointment, since hope, like desire, no longer tolerates the slow work of time — of reality.

I think you want it all and too quickly, and that changes are happening everywhere and constantly, and painfully slowly. Which you won’t admit, because America should be able to turn around more promptly, you think. I also think that I like this shadow, fluctuation, this introspective America. I think that this humility suits you — even if the luminous threads of hope suited you better.