To be honest, I am, for the first time in my life, speechless.
In one night, I went from having insurmountable hope in the American system, its people and its leaders to pure, unadulterated embarrassment for having stood so valiantly for all of these things. It’s ironic, really, because just yesterday I told an old high school teacher that I am constantly oscillating between pragmatism and revolutionary fervor. However, I told him, “There’s progress we’ve made that I’d hate to see rolled back. And I don’t know if we should fix the framework or burn it down. But, right now, I have more appreciation and love than hate for it and think it can be fixed without having to be completely dismantled.”
Turns out, though, that the picture of America I forged in my mind, the land of opportunity, a beacon of natural rights and democracy, a government by and for all the people, is, evidently, not the America I live in.
Anti-establishment rhetoric is a thin veil for what really occurred on Tuesday. As Van Jones put it Tuesday night, this is a “white-lash” against a black president. How are we supposed to face our kids? We tell them over and over again not to be bullies, not to be mean, not to be bigots, and yet their president, their leader, their political “role model” is Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, I had the privilege of attending an election watch party with the College Democrats of Massachusetts. It was at Club Café in Boston, which is a bar just seven minutes from the Arlington train station. I looked forward to this — we all looked forward to this. But the mood and emotion quickly turned from excitement and cheer to pure horror. Some cried. Others booed. Those older than 21 drank.
One woman, when Florida was called, pointed at the TV screen in tears and said, “Orlando … we don’t remember Orlando.”
She was referring to the Pulse Nightclub shooting that killed 49 people, most of whom were gay and Latino.
It was so bleak that I had to leave early. Defeat is bitter but even more so when security, safety and livelihood hangs in the balance.
Half of the American people don’t agree with what this man stands for. He’s insulted disabled persons, women, black Americans, latino Americans, gay persons, etc. The rhetoric he spews is poisonous, and we’re gearing up for a poisonous four years.
It’s easy to condemn people, or fault people, or cry. I’ve done my fair share of all those things and it hasn’t even been 24 hours. But this is the reality we’re going to have to live with for the next four years. The sun has to come up tomorrow. We have to live together, look each other in the eye, shake hands, interact. We have no choice. We must keep going.
My mom lived in Communist Poland the first half of her life. They shut the lights off arbitrarily just because they could. They censored university students. They encroached on personal and natural rights. But, she told me on the phone just a couple of hours ago in an attempt to calm me down, “I woke up and had to live.”
She was afraid, she was tired, she was upset, but she nonetheless had to live. Bad government serves to oppress, but also to galvanize. What is remarkable about the human condition is that oppression doesn’t work. You can try to degrade a person, to ignore him, to keep him down, but there is something innate in him that will never, ever let you. No matter how hard you try.
I am ready to fight with every fiber of my being against this. Somewhere, deep down, I still have faith that the political establishment will not do what the American people do not will. I do not will misogyny. I do not will homophobia. I do not will hate.
If this election has done anything, it’s proven to me that I, as well as everyone I know, need to be vigilant and salient. We need younger people in politics, more progressive people, more hopefully people. People who will scream and shout and demand moral change.
Beautifully expressed, Anna. Glad to ‘hear’ a familiar, young voice of reason. Hope you are well.