Here’s where I’m at right now:
I’m cautiously optimistic that Biden will win, though it’s not the blowout I/we’d hoped for, and honestly flipping the Senate is looking grim. Seeing that there won’t be a blue wave, that it’s not a wipeout for Trump, is disheartening, yes. Because when you pile up all of Trump’s failures, it seems astounding that people still vote for him, still like him, in numbers high enough to seriously make Democrats (and left-leaning independents, like myself) sweat through the counting of, and possible impending lawsuits over, the ballots.
But.
Whatever the outcome, we always knew there’d be more work to do, right? Even if it were the best-case scenario we’d hoped for, that Biden would be the clear winner on the 3rd (or early morning on the 4th) and that the Dems would gain the Senate majority. And in our fondest, dearest, pie-in-the-sky hopes, that McConnell would somehow lose his seat, too.
Even then, we knew that come January 20th, there’d still be work to do. Didn’t we?
Because the fact remains that Trump, for all that he has encouraged violence, and shown no sadness for the 233,000 Americans who’ve died of COVID, and fomented unrest and division, and crashed the stable economy he inherited from Obama, and put us back on the trajectory of destroying the planet, all the other ands that we are fighting not to become deadened to–for all of that, Trump is the symptom. He is not the disease. We knew that, right?
We knew that even if we got him out of the White House, there’d still be vast amounts of work to do. It’s just that the work becomes slightly easier with him gone (and, preferably, jailed).
We knew that the millions of Americans willing to overlook Trump’s sexism and racism and homophobia and arrogance (or, worse, consider those features rather than bugs) would still exist, after he was out of the White House. That we would still live in a country built upon stolen land with stolen labor, facts that white people are often reluctant to address. (I say that as a mixed-race person who was brought up more “white” than “Black.”) That we would still have rampant voter suppression. That we would still have an ever-widening gap between the 1% and everyone else.
We knew all that, right?
So.
I am cautiously optimistic, when I’m not cycling back into white-hot anxiety. But I’m mindful that there is no “reset” button–and that even if there were, going back to the way things were isn’t sufficient, or else we will find ourselves with another Trump.
For now, patience as the votes continue to be counted. Support your friends and loved ones, particularly if they’re of a vulnerable demographic. Be prepared to resist misinformation surrounding the counts.
But remember that come January 20th, whoever is in the Oval Office, there is still massive work to be done.