Win or Lose, This Feels Bad
This wasn't a progressive landslide, but it’s possible to be sad without giving up, and to not let our initial dismay calcify into nihilism.
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There’s still a lot we don’t know about the 2020 presidential election, but those of us hoping for a Joe Biden landslide or a blue Senate know enough at this point to feel incredibly disheartened. Even if Biden wins the popular vote by millions of votes—which is looking highly likely, as it has for a while—and wins the electoral college, there’s no arguing with the reality that this election is a close one, or with the fact that millions and millions and millions of people in the United States voted for a lying white supremacist who doesn’t give a fuck about the 225,000+ Americans who have died from COVID-19 this year. Which is why so many of us are feeling so bad today, even as the reason for optimism overall in the presidential race remains high.
Why do I feel so awful right now? I’ve been wondering since I woke up this morning and saw that the news was… still OK. It’s not because of the polls, actually, or because the polls were wrong. Everything that’s happened so far was always a very real possibility, and, in some ways, it’s all going better than we expected. But I still feel sad because it’s one thing to know, in the abstract, that die-hard Republicans exist, or that disinformation is a serious problem in the United States (and that Trump spreads it far and wide regularly). It’s another to watch state after state turn red, and to know that 66,772,777 million people (according to the New York Times at this exact moment) are comfortable buying what Trump and McConnell are selling.
Since last night—and, really, since 2016—a lot of people have made the point that this is, in fact, who America is, and always has been. We’re not actually united, or exceptional, or good people; we’re racist and greedy and violent and individualist and easily taken in by a con man. And that is true! It’s not news!
Still, it’s possible to both understand that this is who we are, or even to be fairly cynical about Americans at this point, and still find the raw numbers incredibly upsetting. Because those numbers represent real people—real people who we know and have to interact with or work with or take classes with or even live with… real people who, at best, don’t care about other people, and, at worst, actively hate us, personally. Who are actively plotting to take our rights away and who love that we’re upset right now.
I feel so sad about the Senate. I don’t know how to process the fact that Biden could win, but we still might not get a COVID relief package come January. I feel angry that the openly hypocritical Lindsey “I want you to use my words against me” Graham beat Jaime Harrison in South Carolina, and that a white woman who casually joked about attending a lynching is the senator-elect in Mississippi instead of Mike Espy, who would have been the state’s first Black senator since 1875. There have been 10 Black senators in United States history. Ten. How does one not feel sad about that?
Even knowing everything I do about this country, I still feel upset that Marjorie Taylor Greene, an unabashed QAnon supporter, will be heading to Congress. I’m also disgusted that Prop. 22 passed in California, meaning tech companies like Uber and Lyft can continue to classify their workers as independent contractors and thus deny them many benefits.
Of course, there are things to be happy about right now, and a lot really did go right yesterday. I’m personally really excited about Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, Ritchie Torres, and the expansion of the Squad. Re-reading the representative-elects’ bios and backgrounds and seeing words like “a progressive activist and veteran of the racial justice protest movement” and “the first openly gay Black men in Congress” and “abolish private prisons” is the happiest I’ve felt in the past 24 hours.
I’m also really thrilled about the drugs! And that Florida voted to raise the minimum wage to $15! I’m also happy to hear that voter turnout has been historically high, and relieved yesterday went largely smoothly, despite widespread—reasonable!—fear of voter intimidation and violence at the polls.
But also: Every bit of good news is a reminder of how low our expectations are, when you stop and think about it. Like, I’m very happy that there wasn’t any major violence yesterday, but that doesn’t change the fact that police pepper sprayed and arrested peaceful protesters who were en route to an early voting site in North Carolina on Saturday. We’re fighting tooth and nail and getting pepper sprayed for the right to cast a vote for Joe Biden. Joe Biden!!!!!
I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult to stomach the reality that there are often no real consequences for being a terrible person—and, worse, that being openly horrible often comes with incredible spoils. It’s hard not to look around and feel scared, or to think, What’s the fucking point?
Of course, there is a fucking point. None of these wins happened by accident, and we’d be in a far worse place right now if thousands of dedicated people hadn’t been preparing for and working toward this moment for years. (Here’s just one example.) Yes, the 66,772,777 people who voted for four more years of this (or worse) makes me want to scream, but I am trying to remind myself that 69,706,081 people as of right now have said, “Fuuuuuuuck this shit.” A lot of things can be true at once, and it’s entirely possible to be sad without giving up, and to not let our initial dismay calcify into nihilism.
For now, I’m going to take the advice I’ve given many times already this year, and just let myself be sad for a little while. As therapist Andrea Bonior told me in April, “People think that being grateful for the fact that it's not worse means that they’re supposed to hide those uncomfortable emotions. But the opposite is true. It’s about going all in and actually experiencing the full range of human life rather than just saying, ‘Well, these emotions aren't acceptable.’”
I’ll also take comfort in the words of people like Rev. Dr. William Barber and Angela Davis, who have been doing this work for years, and who help me remember that these conflicting feelings—of disappointment and hope, of awe at how much progress has been made in my lifetime and despair at how much suffering there still is—are not unique to me or to this moment in history. “It is easy to feel discouraged and simply let go,” Davis writes in Freedom Is a Constant Struggle. “There is no shame in that. We are, after all, engaged in a struggle that seems, if we look at it using a mainstream political framework and through a mass media prism, unwinnable. On the other hand, if we take a step back, look at things from a broader angle, reflecting on what is happening all over the world and the history of struggle, the history of solidarity movements, it becomes clear, sometimes even obvious, that seemingly indestructible forces can be, thanks to people’s willpower, sacrifices, and actions, easily broken.”
I’ll take at least one long walk and go to the water, which always helps, even if it doesn’t really change anything. I’ll put on Tracy Chapman and listen to my favorite rendition of a classic gospel song, and think about what it means to be a queer Black woman in a nation still grappling with its original sin.
And then tonight, regardless of how many votes are counted or who the projected winner is or what lies Trump has yeeted into our feeds or how disappointed and angry I’m still feeling, I’ll sign on to a call with organizers to await next steps. I hope if you’re feeling upset today, you’ll do something similar—be gentle with yourself, take a beat, look to the people who have been doing the work, and then let your hurt blossom into action.
Rachel Miller is the author of The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People. Follow her on Twitter.
