Nov 7

Nov 7 Dancing in the Street

Chicago, Demonstrations, Festivals, Street, Urban Landscapes

“And I was in it, aware of my ascent
no more than one becomes aware
of the beginnings of a thought before it comes.

It is [Biden] who leads from good
to better so suddenly that [his] action
has no measurement in time”

— Paradiso, Canto X, Lines 34 through 39, Robert and Jean Hollander, Translators

“Calling out around the world
Are you ready for a brand new beat?
Summer’s here and the time is right
For dancing in the street
They’re dancing in Chicago (dancing in the street)
Down in New Orleans (dancing in the street)
In New York City (dancing in the street)”

— Dancing in the Street, Martha and the Vandellas, from 45-RPM Gordy 7033

Saturday morning, 10:15 AM, I was reading Dante’s Paradiso in preparation for my class Tuesday morning. Whoops and hollers erupted outside my window as I was busy cross-checking the many biblical and classical references in Canto X. I hadn’t heard those sounds since last April, when people stood on their balconies nightly at 7 PM singing in unison, yearning for the human connection that Covid-19 destroyed as it danced on air particles and stowed away on yogurt container tops, or so we thought. NPR also heard the joyful noise, reporting that people spontaneously broke into jubilation in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, where I have lived for the last 28 years.

As had been my practice since Wednesday, I started my morning watching the Big Board on MSNBC. I think chartbabe Steve Kornacki was catching some rest, but I honestly don't remember—it might have been Ali Velshi at the Big Board. The last four days are just a fuzzy memory. From deepest despair on Tuesday night to equanimity as Biden began to close the gaps in Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. For a while, the Arizona gap was moving in Trump’s favor despite the call by Fox News for Biden, but his lead looked like it would hold.

Waiting is always the hardest part. The next day’s birthday party at Kiddie Land. The CPA exam’s results in early August—will it be a big envelope or a small one? The results from a dreaded medical test. We’ve all been there more than once.

Was the waiting over? I closed Dante’s Paradiso, and turned on MSNBC. Obviously something had changed. There was Brian Williams (The Eleventh Hour—the AM version, which is a nice touch of symmetry), with a lone PowerPoint slide on the screen—blue background, text “Joe Biden, President-Elect.” The arrow hit its target, and then left the bow. The hollers grew louder as news spread.

Despite feeling the earthquake that erupts when a shade moves from Purgatory and begins the ascent upward through the stars to the Empyrean, I sensed that Donald Trump still remained the center of attention. As an aside, Minos had a lot of trouble placing Trump within Dante’s conception of Hell because Trump uniquely qualifies for each terrace found in the Eighth and Ninth Circles. Despite being a living being, Trump remains ensconced in the Ninth Circle.

Would Trump concede? Would he be gracious? Would he be forcibly removed from the White House? Would the Supreme Court intervene, or had even the Originalists had enough? I already knew the answers to those questions. If Trump has been nothing else during the last four years, he has been consistent, both in his own actions and the reactions to him by the college-educated.

I packed my grey messenger backpack with a second lens and some extra batteries, and headed off with camera in hand. I forgot my earplugs, Atkins snack bars, and a second camera. Walking towards Broadway, I now heard horns honking. It was sunny and already in the 70s, so I turned south. Before long, I knew I would find myself 3.5 miles later standing at the intersection of Wacker Drive and Wabash, across the river from Trump International Hotel and Tower, the official gathering spot for virtually every anti-Trump demonstration in the City of Chicago since January 21, 2016.

Until I closed in on Michigan Avenue, I was nervous. Lots of honking horns accompanied me as I walked down Clark, cut through the park, and threaded my way through the Gold Coast along State Street, but so far this was not a visual experience. Many of the people who were out and about were looking down at their cellphones. To the extent people were gathered, it was at outdoor bars, with television monitors broadcasting college football, of all things on such a momentous day.

Even on Michigan Avenue, things were relatively normal, at least as normal as they can be in the time of disease and civic unrest. Virtually every store was covered in plywood. Pedestrians were mostly masked. Both reminders of what Donald Trump had wrought on this nation. An occasional car passed by with an American flag or Biden-Harris sign.

It wasn’t until I arrived at the Wrigley Tower that the day became a visual one. The Wabash Avenue bridge connecting Wacker Drive to the Trump International Hotel and Tower had been raised. During recent civil unrest, Mayor Lightfoot ordered all the bridges spanning the Chicago River along Wacker raised in an effort to contain rioters and looters. Today, only the “drawbridge” over the “moat” protecting the Trump Tower punctuated the sky. Pretty symbolic.

A crowd of no more than 750 people were dancing on the Loop side, across the river from the Trump Tower. The police had blocked off the surrounding arterials, allowing the celebration to proceed unhampered by traffic. Hands waving in the air, the revelers chanted what has been appropriated as an infamous sports anthem, “Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, hey, hey, goodbye.” But Chicagoans never loved Donald Trump.

As the afternoon unfolded, the traffic on southbound Michigan Avenue became congested, with people hanging out of car windows and poking their bodies through open sunroofs, holding signs and waving cellphones. People skipped down the street, pumping their arms and flashing the “V” sign. According to news reports, the celebration continued into the night. I saw more than a few cars drive past me two or three times as I worked Michigan Avenue, suggesting that the thrill of driving past Trump Tower warranted a u-Turn or two and the risk of a ticket.

As I awaited the result that finally came today, spending too many hours on my iPad watching MSNBC, CNN, and Fox, I had one recurring thought: Donald Trump had one positive accomplishment during his presidency. Long ago, 4th grade introduced me to civics, with a focus on Wisconsin history and government. That was repeated in 7th grade with Mr. Peterson, who gave us 120 assignments over the course of the year, which included a trip to the village hall, writing essays about how a bill becomes a law, and a look at the United Nations. He referred to each assignment as a contract, a not-so-subtle attempt, I now realize, to inculcate the rule of law into the overall lesson.

Like many of my peers, I have taken much for granted with age. Beginning with the Vietnam War and then Watergate, I became a cynic, with my worldview confirmed each time a political scandal erupted, be it Senator Frank Church’s investigation into the CIA, Reagan’s Iran-Contra scandal, Clinton’s intern peccadillo, Cheney’s fairytale about weapons of mass destruction, or the periodic financial meltdowns made possible by an explosive mixture of lax regulation and greed.

I could identify a phony patriot a mile away—a flag pin or the vapid, “Thank you for your service”—but my own patriotism waned and I became complacent as the United States won the Cold War and gained economic supremacy. My country would always exist in the idealized form that long ago had been chiseled into my mind—a form that had been carved by teachers, Jimmy Stewart, and countless trips to Washington, D.C., which had included service on the Clinton Transition Team, membership on an IRS advisory committee, a six-year stint on the board of a national charity, and countless speaking engagements. Justice would be blind; grift in government would be severely punished; the three branches would check each other; and the President served all Americans.

Donald Trump made me and many others realize that in the blink of an eye, we could lose what we should have cherished all along. Adolph Hitler was not an isolated historic figure.

Today was a day for celebration, but not just of Trump’s political demise. While his ouster from the halls of power was the spark, we should all be celebrating our renewed patriotism and appreciation of country.