On Hope
The remaining leaves — yellow and orange, still on their branches — glowed against the deep blue sky. It was a beautiful sky, unusually warm for early November. A scatter of wispy clouds dotted the otherwise unending blue. There was a lightness in the air. Everyone seemed like they were walking with an extra spring in their step.
I got dressed and made breakfast. I kept looking out the window at the elementary school across the street from my apartment. I saw people of every age, every race, go in and out. Young families carrying daughters and sons. Middle-aged women pushing their mothers’ wheelchairs. After I finished breakfast, I walked across the street. I gave them my name and signed on the dotted line. I took my ballot and filled in the circle next to Hillary Clinton. I’d always loved voting — this was my third presidential election — but this one felt different.
I stayed up to watch Obama’s acceptance speech in 2008 after I voted for the first time. It made me so proud. I knew it was coming but it still seemed impossible. I got choked up and I didn’t know why. The next morning felt like a new beginning. I remember the blue sky that morning. It told me the future was bright. I smiled the entire drive to class. I was hopeful. I was reminded of that feeling when I finally voted for Clinton. The future felt bright again. The impossible seemed possible again. Finally a woman — who happened to be the most qualified person to ever be up for the job, by the way — would get the promotion over the bombastic, utterly unqualified man. It was that same blue sky I saw in 2008.
My partner had spent the last two years working for the Clinton campaign. She had worked harder than I’d ever seen anyone work — giving up her personal life for months for something she believed so fully in was an inspiration to me. So that night, I settled in to watch the results online while she worked into the night. I was confident but my chest felt heavy. No election is a sure thing. The New York Times had an interactive ticker that showed the expected outcome percentages. We were consistently between 70 and 100% likely to win. But as the night went on, the ticker started pointing the other direction. The text messages I was exchanging with friends turned ominous. I poured a glass of whiskey.
E texted me that she was heading over to the Javits Center, where Clinton was set to give her victory speech. In the hour it took her to get there, everything changed. “What’s happening?” I texted her. I poured another glass of whiskey. My stomach turned. I can still hear Wolf Blitzer saying “Donald Trump is the 45th president of the United States”. I got in bed at 3:30am, slightly inebriated.
If election day was a perfect fall day — blue skies, crisp air, laughter — the day after was the opposite. The skies were grey and the air damp. It was raining. If this were a movie, the metaphor was too on the nose. I woke up hungover, still in shock. I took a long walk, quiet piano music on repeat in my headphones. Every person I passed looked the same: lost, confused, scared. Whatever we thought was going to happen, reality proved to be even worse. If I’ve learned anything over the last eight years, it’s that the low is lower than I could imagine.
We’ve lost, collectively, so much. I think of the loss of trust in institutions, of science, of progress, of facts. I think of the loss of shared ideals and wonder whether they ever really existed. I think of my children and the ever-present threat of a shooter entering their schools. I think of a future where they might have less rights than I grew up with. I think of the pandemic and how, under different circumstances, that could have been a moment of collective action, of coming together but instead became another marker of division. I think of January 6, 2021 and the amnesia around it from so many in power. I think of democracy and wonder how so many are ready to throw it away; and for what?
One thing I haven’t lost, one thing I refuse to lose, is the hope I felt in 2008, in 2016. In her book, Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit wrote:
I say all this because hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. I say it because hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency; because hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal. Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed.
I cling to my hope not because I am naive — regardless of what happens, I am clear-eyed about the dark days that surely lie ahead — but because I believe — deep in my bones, for my children, and those I love the most — that another world is possible. Not promised, not guaranteed, but possible. This is not blind faith or naive optimism but a belief that it doesn’t need to be like this.
I’ve studied enough history to know that a single election can’t change everything; that regardless of who wins, there is always more work to do. I wrote nearly the same thing four years and feel the same way now. We need to fight the climate crisis. We need to rebuild trust in our institutions. We need to restore a woman’s right to control her body. We need to prioritize life over profit. We need to end the genocide in Gaza. We need to do so much more. This afternoon I walked into a church around the corner from my home and cast my ballot for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. The sky is again a bright blue, the weather unusually warm. I drove home ready to keep working, filled with hope.