Laugh in his face

When I was in my late teens or early 20s, I wrote a bad short story. This isn't anything in itself. At that age and at that point in our lives, most of us write bad stories of one kind or another. And my story wouldn't have risen to the "so bad it's interesting" level; it was simply an overwrought story full of its own importance and cleverness, and to be honest the only thing I remember of it is that it was part of an attempt I was making then to have all my stories interconnect by showing the different sides of the same characters (for instance, by having one character, an attempted rapist in one story, die in Vietnam saving a wounded soldier in another story), and as an indication of its poverty, I don't even remember the title.

But I do remember its denouement. The story was about elementary students whose teacher opts not to have a Christmas tree in their classroom, leading one child's father to confront the teacher in the parking lot after school in front of the kids. The father, who I modeled after a short, scared, violent man I knew in real life, punches the teacher in the face, knocking hm into the snow, and then drops into a defensive stance. The teacher, straightening up, instead of fighting him the way the kids hope for, laughs loudly at the father, collects his things, and walks to his car, still laughing. This might sound better and more nuanced than it was, and my story suffers from the teacher having to explain to the narrator why he did that.

But my point, that people who mete out violence deserve the deflation of a loud laugh and the unwillingness to take them seriously, is a good one. I don't remember where I got that but it's a good point: Try putting yourself above others by one means or another, and try to keep yourself there by violent reaction, and you need to be brought back to reality by a hearty belly laugh at your expense.

Not with you, but at you.

This is what I think we need in this age of trump, a solid laugh at what he and his supporters say about themselves and about him. To be sure, what they are doing and attempting to do, by taking on for themselves the responsibility of turning back the clock to a time when old rich white men make the rules everyone but them play by, is not a laughing matter. It hurts people in reality, sometimes killing them, and often the most vulnerable. That's what they count on to keep ourselves in line, that they are too serious and frightening in what they can do to us. How much more crushing to their sense of self to be reminded that we know they're afraid. They deserve no solace or pity.

Laugh in their faces.

Your uncle forwards a message that climate change as we're experiencing it is natural. Return it with a laugh. Someone you're having a debate with says trump is doing well for the economy. Laugh in his face. I'm not talking about a titter or a chuckle. I'm talking about a full, inarticulate, unstoppable belly laugh. As if what they are asserting is so obviously on the face of it ridiculous that the only rational response is to laugh at it, because it must be a joke. And make no mistake because trump and his assertions are a joke.

Would this have made a difference, had we treated trump as the empty suit he is at the start of his campaign as a self-referencing buffoon? Some would argue that we did exactly that, and further that it was our inability to take him and his ideas as a serious threat that led us to where we are. That may be the case. Perhaps our having done so worked in his favor, giving him and his followers the impulse to show us up for not having taken him and them seriously. I don't know. But I do know that they're expecting us now to take them seriously, and it's time to point out to them, no matter what harm they may try to do us, that we do not.