We Can Defend Our City, & Our Nation

(Opinion) —I am one of the 86 percent of New Haveners who voted for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday. I know many of you shared my progression of thought that day starting around 5 p.m. The election was in the bag. I would gather with close friends for dinner, a beer, and to watch our nation proudly reject the pouty, red-faced clown-candidate, along with the worldwide trend toward xenophobic nationalism. We would reaffirm that the United States is one of the most inclusive, welcoming, and — yes — moral countries in the world. As returns started to come in, that sense of triumph quickly turned to nervousness, anxiety, and disillusion.

Psychologists say there are five stages to grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I sped through the first three on election night — first by denying that so many Americans wanted to give more power to a man who bragged that having celebrity power was the only permission required to grab a woman’s ​“pussy”; second by raging against those Americans including national leaders like House Speaker Paul Ryan who publiclly acknowledge their candidate is ​“racist” yet persist in supporting him; third by trying to convince myself that the election results were wrongly skewed in favor of Trump because of Russian hacking. 

I then landed solidly on the fourth stage of grieving — depression — and wondered whether I could climb out. I’ve asked myself many questions that don’t have answers. What does a Trump victory mean for our nation? For our city? For my family? How do I explain to my two-year-old daughter concepts such as fairness, compassion, and respect as she grows over the next four years under a leader who laughs at people with disabilities and labels people ​“rapists” based on their ethnicity? How can I find hope in humanity when I know that I will start each day for the next four years with a dose of morning-newspaper-despair?

Today I managed to claw my way into the final stage of grief — the glum, uncomfortable world of acceptance that Donald J. Trump will be our president. And today I got to work considering what this practically means for our city and how we must respond.

Our city has felt divided in many ways since I made this place my home in 2007. At first it was Mayor John Destefano Jr.‘s ​“machine” against a raucous coalition of anti-tax-hike citizens led by activist Jeffrey Kerekes. The sweeping win of the aldermen backed by Yale’s Local 34 and 35 unions that followed raised new tensions and divides. My own campaign for mayor was cast as a divisive election separating newer residents focused on a vision of transparent, policy-based governance solutions and the clean-elections process versus the old guard who believed in harnessing historical, traditional political power structures. And these days we observe weekly spectacles as our Board of Education bickers or department heads challenge the mayor’s authority or are forced out by competing powers.

I’ve wondered many times how a city where every elected official is a Democrat could possibly have so many things to fight about. 

But when I step back from the day-to-day dramas, I realize that our disagreements often are based on diverging views of our governing processes — how decisions are, or should be, made — rather than our foundational values. In fact, in recent years when our city faced questions that challenged us to identify the core ideals that define who we are as a city, we nearly always answered with values like inclusion, fairness, and compassion. We welcome those seeking refuge from conflict by hosting one of the largest refugee relocation programs in the nation. We provide sanctuary to those who are in our country to find a better life and escape extreme poverty by creating the nation’s first immigrant ID card. We cherish forgiveness and second chances by ​“banning the box” (we were third in the nation to do so) and by proactively providing services and support for the large number of ex-offenders living in our city. We championed LGTBQ+ acceptance when our Board of Alders unanimously voted to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. (Our City Hall was also the site of the first gay marriage in Connecticut in 2008.) Year after year we agree to support countless initiatives aimed at addressing the deep challenges faced by those living in poverty. We are a city that welcomes, includes, and cares. And we do so nearly unanimously.

Today we face another challenge. And make no mistake, these coming years will be some of most challenging that our city and nation have faced. Federal funding for hundreds of non-profits providing lifelines for the neediest of residents — everything from homeless shelters to supportive housing to community health centers —i s undoubtedly at risk. (The Housing Authority of New Haven alone receives around $100 million in federal Housing and Urban Development funding annually.) Our self-proclaimed identity as a sanctuary city for the undocumented will be threatened. As a coastal city with disproportionate rates of asthma we will be doubly threatened by a president that both denies climate change and intends to render the Environmental Protection Agency impotent. Vast budget cuts will decimate poorer urban centers like ours that are heavily reliant on federal grant funding to support our poorer populations. (Our school system alone receives approximately $58 million in direct federal grants.) Who knows what other policies will be declared on a whim with no foundation in evidence or research: All this will be carried out by presidential appointees in the same vein as Rudy Guiliani, Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, and Andrew Breitbart, who will promote a toxic, base political dialogue lacking dignity and mutual respect.

These past few days there has been a great deal of rhetoric in the national press about how the nation needs to come together. I am deeply skeptical that is possible in today’s political climate. And frankly, I’m not personally ready to ​“come together” with those who supported a candidate whose behavior and political stances I find abhorrent.

But I do believe New Haven can and needs to rally to respond with one voice to the attacks that will threaten what we cherish. We must focus not on our marginal differences but on what brings us together.

I’ve accepted that Trump will be our president. And while I’m not a psychologist, it seems to me there should be a sixth stage of grieving — resolve. Because after acceptance we must move on and decide how we shall live each coming day. So when we see a president who lacks a sense of decency, we will respond by making every effort to be more decent to others. When we feel shame for the words and choices of our nation’s top elected official, we will speak proudly of the values that make us who we are. And when those values are attacked, we will stand firmly by them and defend the city and the America we believe we should be.

Justin Elicker is the executive director off the New Haven Land Trust.