As I laid in bed last night, sleep avoiding me at all cost and with the reality that my closest, loudest neighbour just lost his damn mind again sinking in, I wondered what I was going to say about it. Should I even bother? Does it matter what I think? How do I even express this profound worry and disappointment in a meaningful way? How do I, in spite of what I just said, offer up any sort of hope to someone who might really be able to use that?
In 2016, that was difficult, but it was doable. There are parts of what I said then that certainly still apply, but this one feels different. Different and worse.
Last time, you could maybe rationalize it. He lost the popular vote, but won because of a flawed system. People voted for him in spite of what he quite plainly is because he’s a celebrity or novelty or even because they thought “wouldn’t it be really funny if…?” He was a thing that happened. An awful thing to be sure, but one that would correct itself soon enough.
And it almost did. Trump was a one term president. He still had his supporters, but people saw through him now and realized that no, it really wouldn’t be funny if… after all. We could be done with this.
But it never went away. It only got louder and somehow more obnoxious and terrible. But America wouldn’t really go back there, would it? Hell yeah it would. It would and it did. And this time it wasn’t an accident. The country knew exactly what it was doing.
Donald J. Trump is the chosen president-elect of the United States in every possible way you can be, a winner in the popular vote and a winner in that marble mausoleum called the electoral college. This time, I am absolutely sure that a majority of my fellow citizens will get exactly what they want. They will get pardons for the January 6 insurrectionists and an end to any federal prosecution of the incoming president, now and forever. They will get the attacks of the free press and on political dissent that they have been slavering for. They will get the validation for their rage, and the outlet for their promised vengeance, beyond their wildest fantasies. They will get the chaos for which they voted, and which they apparently fervently desire. And there is absolutely nothing that god, man, or the Constitution can do about it, because we did it to ourselves.
We will get all these things because we have expressed our earnest desire for them all through the only true means allowed to us—our votes.
We have decided that science and learning don’t count as much as misogyny and racism. We have decided that democratic institutions making reasoned decisions on matters of national policy don’t count as much as goofy nicknames and sixth-grade invective. We have traded engaging in the work of self-government for entertaining ourselves with a freak show, and don’t it feel…gooooooooood?
There’s no blaming the Russians this time around. There’s no blaming media malpractice. There’s still some blame to attribute to voter-suppression, but majorities elect the people who suppress the votes, which means that majorities accept the fantastical bullshit that is the rationale for those laws in the first place. The American people, which is all of us, got together on Tuesday and chose everything that’s coming for close to the next decade.
There’s an expression I hear a lot these days. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Ok, America. I believe you now. How could I not? You sent all of us in the rest of the world a pretty loud and clear signal last night. You’ve been giving off the vibe for a long time, if I’m being honest. But now there’s no mistake.
You are a nation that has such a fear of and disdain for women that when given the choice of an intelligent woman or a rapist who brags about stripping away women’s basic human rights, you proudly and patriotically stepped up and chose the rapist. When asked to choose between serious policies that might improve millions of lives or selfish, petty grudges and mean-spirited attacks, you looked at your fellow man and said “yeah, fuck that guy!” And when simultaneously confronted with a message of renewal, love and inclusion and a hate fest thrown in the world’s most famous arena by a criminal who literally tried to overthrow an incoming government, you threw your hands in the air, waved them like you just didn’t care and screamed that there ain’t no party like a Nazi party.
If none of that was the message that your vote for Trump was intended to send, I would love for you to explain what it was supposed to have been. We have eyes, ears and brains. We know that hate, bitterness, narcissism and immorality without consequence are all Trump has. We’ve known that forever. And you’ve chosen to be ok with all of it.
Now Steve, where is this hope you promised us?
It wasn’t a promise, you guys. It was a question.
But it is still there.
I think back to my bed last night. Yes, there was the sound of the people on the radio giving out results as they rolled in and of Trump making his rambling victory speech, but there were other things, too. Next to me, there was still a person I love. Outside my window, the cars were still moving. The rain was still falling. The breeze was still blowing. Those motherfuck train whistles were still blasting away even though it was two in the goddamned morning. Eventually, the election talk stopped and the radio moved on to something else for a while. All of that, as I tossed and turned and tried to process, turned out to be a much needed reminder that no matter what, life will go on. That not everything is all bad all the time even when it feels like bad things keep happening. And even though I’ve just finished saying some pretty harsh things about an entire country (all of which I stand by(, that there is still love and good and normalcy out there.
Not all of you voted for Trump or for this version of his Republican party. You did what you could to keep this from happening. You came up short, but we thank you for trying. We know that you’ll do everything in your power to make sure that you’re still allowed another crack at it in a few years. Just as those cars on my street kept moving, so too will you. You’ll pick yourselves up and find your way through, because it’s what people do. Who knows what that will look like, but it will come to look like something. Something better than this feels. Life, as they say, finds a way.
I’ll leave you with this, because I think having to do it twice makes it a tradition.