Election Day, pizza, and the green light at the end of the dock

By Alfred P. Doblin

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning—”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Great Gatsby”

Another Election Day. I spent decades of my life awaiting Election Day like it was Christmas – so much to unwrap. And instead of a fragrant roasted turkey, there was the promise of election-night newsroom pizza, boxes and boxes of the stuff – never really hot – but if you made your way quickly to the line snaking out a conference room, you might get slices warm enough to remind you of what it once was.

Election results were eagerly awaited if you ran an Opinion desk, as I did for many years. If it was a big enough race, say for president or governor and it had been too close to predict in advance, there were two editorials written in advance. One would be reworked to reflect what had happened in real time, the other discarded.

The promise of democracy is never so bright as it is before the results come streaming in. The penultimate paragraph in The Great Gatsby speaks to our belief that somehow tomorrow will be different, the outcome will be what we desired.

I saw the musical Hadestown the week Broadway reopened after the pandemic. The theater was electric – audience and actors – all wanted to be there and to be closer to what was before Covid. The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is, to borrow from the show’s lyrics, “a sad song.” Yet, when the tragedy ends as it has for centuries, many in the audience gasped. Perhaps no one reads anymore, but I suspect it was because of the very construct of the show: Despite knowing how the story ends, we sing it again and again because we hope it will play out differently this time.

Some may call that madness. Maybe. But maybe, it’s the secret sauce that enables us, every now and then, to surprise ourselves. We hope against all odds.

Gatsby dies, Daisy and Tom disappear into their money, and Nick, the narrator, remains a wounded, cynical observer of the events. Still, we hope.

The ethical and moral bar for elections was never high. Dirt, rotting food, and whatever else awaited composting, have been heaved with abandon since our inception. I am not surprised by the ads that have flooded television, my computer, and phone. I also am not surprised that inspirational candidates are a rarity.

That explains why when one appears, whether from the left or right, he or she commands attention. It does not matter whether they will make life better or worse for the bulk of the electorate. That is not why they gain attention. They will make things different – or so we believe.

This time Orpheus will not look back at Eurydice. This time Gatsby lives happily ever after with Daisy. We do not want the ending of the story as written. We want to rewrite it. And so, when given an option, we vote for dramatic change.

Often the results are calamitous. Change for change’s sake is not a solution, but feels, at the beginning like it will be. Change for good, aside from sounding like a song from Wicked, is the green light flashing at the end of Daisy’s dock. “Gatsby believed in the green light.”

Is it such a bad thing to believe in what we know to be an impossibility?

The end of The Great Gatsby always struck me as both sad and hopeful. Fitzgerald’s view of an unmoored, decadent society is sexy and bleak; beautiful faceless people hopscotched from one party to another. But we will keep doing it over and over because maybe just this one time—

The irony of the lavish Gatsby-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago last week could not be greater. It’s a sad song and we will sing again.

Decadence is not new. Callous indifference to the needs of the many is not new.

Yet, somewhere between the lines of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution – documents authored by slave owners – is the hope that it can turn out differently; that if we keep telling the story again and again something about us in the moment it is being retold this new time, will change the outcome.

It is madness. But is a beautiful madness. It is why we vote for candidates that rarely excite us, because if we keep doing it, again and again, just maybe one time the choices will be different.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” as Fitzgerald writes at the conclusion of The Great Gatsby.

Things will change for the better. Democracy will thrive. And in some newsroom, the election-night pizza will be hot.

Until next time, Alfred with P