The Levee Breaks

Thoughts about the future on the morning of the election

by James Kaelan

It’s election day, 6:43am. I returned to Los Angeles last night after a week in the woods just west of Seattle. Our one-room cottage stood adjacent to a horse barn and a three-bay carport full of diesel trucks. The key we used to unlock our door was decorated with an American flag and a screaming eagle. “You don’t have to wear your mask here,” our host told us one morning astraddle an idling four-wheeler, a white cockatoo perched on her shoulder. “I’m not too worried about the Wu flu.”

On 98.9 The Bull, a SeaTac country station, a candidate for the Washington State House was running attack spots against the incumbent. “Jim’s opponent wants to defund the police,” says the ad’s narrator. “She thinks that when someone breaks into your house, you shouldn’t call the cops. You should just try to understand the criminal’s motivations. Not Jim. He believes in law and order.”

A couple years ago I made a film about a couple — the Reynolds — who moves from Los Angeles to San Bernardino. Carly supported Hillary Clinton. Billy didn’t vote. The Reynolds’ new neighbors — Ron and Sarah McVee — voted for Trump. One day Billy and Carly come home to discover that someone has jimmied open their side gate, popped out the screen of a downstairs window…