I was wrong. She didn’t win.
In high school, I was on the school’s newspaper staff. Our faculty advisor called me our “resident cynic” because I was always pointing out how nothing was as genuine as it seemed. I went to a christian high school, and there was plenty of hypocrisy to sniff out and expose in the pages of the paper. When I was seventeen, eighteen, I relished that role.
In 2016, when Hilary Clinton lost to Trump, I was sure of the outcome early in the campaign. No matter who told me that Hilary “had it in the bag” and that I should stop worrying and prepare to witness the inauguration of the first woman POTUS, I knew she wasn’t going to win. And I was right.
This time, I didn’t want to be right. I didn’t care if I was right. I wanted to hope. It felt really fucking good to hope. I legitimately thought Kamala Harris was a great candidate. I liked her. Her rallies were bigger and better than Trump’s. Was it really so crazy to hope?
I’m not sorry I indulged in hope for a couple months. I think I needed to remember what it feels like. I can still remember how it felt to be hopeful, just over a week ago, and even though it’s painful, I think it’s good I remember how hope feels. I don’t want to stop. I still want to hope. But I’m not going to put my hope in the Democratic Party.
That doesn’t mean I won’t vote for Democrats, if a Democrat is the best choice on the ballot. (If we still have meaningful elections.) And often, Democrats are the best choice on the ballot. Unless a third party candidate has a real chance of winning a race, voting for such a candidate is a wasted vote. Over the past eight years, I've become a hardcore strategic voter. Before 2016, my emotions had a say each time I voted. Now, when I sit down with my ballot, I check my emotions at the proverbial door until I’ve filled in every little oval, sealed, signed, and mailed the thing.
Now that the election is over, my cynicism is rushing back the way the ocean does during a tsunami: it goes way, way out, and seems to disappear, but then it comes roaring back. It’s destructive. I don’t want to drown in it. But I cannot deny it.
Did the Democratic Party see this coming? I wonder, and that question leads to myriad other questions spiraling down a long tunnel littered with cynical insights that I won’t share here because I am not currently in charge of my emotions. Sharing my most cynical thoughts would be the kind of dumping that makes me feel better, but would not help anyone else.
Because here’s where I’m at: I’m messed up. Last night, I had a panic attack. But when it came on, I wasn’t sure it was a panic attack. Because I haven’t had one in about a year. I haven’t had one since I started taking better care of myself. I’ve actually made a ton of lifestyle changes, and they’ve helped. They’re working.
So to have a panic attack after a year, and after six months of not needing any anti-anxiety medication, I was concerned. Maybe the severe lightheadedness, sinus headache, out-of-body feeling, and severe spike in my blood pressure were something else. Women don’t have the same signs of heart attack as men do (even though most people are typically told to look for the signs that apply most often to men.)
I called the nurse line through my insurance, told them my bp reading and what I was experiencing. They said I should have a friend drive me to urgent care.
Urgent care was closed, so we went to the ER at the local hospital. They did labs and an EKG, then stuck an IV port in my arm and sent me back out to the waiting room with my friend.
We were there for five hours. During that five hours we witnessed a cross section of humanity come and go. Families. An old couple. A junkie with a head injury who couldn’t stop coughing. Parents with sick and injured children. The police brought in a man in handcuffs to be evaluated. Paramedics wheeled in an old man on a gurney. He was wearing a Trump hat.
Sitting there, tired, with a needle stuck in my arm, his Trump hat didn’t even bother me. He looked sick. I didn’t feel too great myself. We were surrounded by unwell people. I was with a good friend, the hospital staff was incredibly competent, and I felt, weirdly, like I was in a good place. I thought about how people sitting in hospitals in other locations in the world have been bombed in the last several years. In places like Gaza. Like Ukraine. I was lucky. This hospital was safe. A three-tone bell kept ringing at the emergency intake desk, and I tried to figure out the intervals. Tonic to fifth, then seventh, I decided.
Finally my name was called and I got my lab results, which showed that I am healthy. I have been taking care of myself. My heart is fine. My kidneys are fine. My liver is fine. They tested my reflexes and hand eye-coordination to be sure I hadn’t had a stroke. No stroke. Everything fine.
So: panic attack. And I’m pretty sure the election result is what brought it on.
That trip to the hospital was my first prolonged trip into the outside world since the election. I work from home; I don’t have to leave the house during the work week if I don’t want to. I’ve been hearing people say that it’s hard for them to go out now. They wonder who voted for him. Is the person checking out your groceries one of them? Is the customer you’re ringing up a white supremacist? Does the man in the produce aisle taunt women online with “your body, my choice?”
Or, does this person standing next to me in the bakery section think I’m the fascist? Do they think I voted against their right to exist and be heard?
I didn’t feel that way at the hospital last night. I didn’t feel that way at all. I just felt like another human in a hospital, hoping nothing serious was wrong with them.
So when I went out to get my groceries this morning, I thought I would be ok. That I wouldn’t feel like I was walking through a minefield of hostility.
But I did. I did feel that way. It was visceral. I couldn’t control it. I tried to talk myself out of it. I reminded myself that the more divided we are, the more the increasingly powerful wealth class wins. They need us divided. They need us to hate and fear each other. They need us to see each other as different. As enemies. They don’t want us to know what we have in common.
The first thing I noticed is I didn’t have the energy for the usual niceties that are a part of being out and about. I tried to fight it, but I couldn’t. Because the minute I opened my mouth to say something mundane and cordial, I wanted to start yelling. Blaming. And chastising, perhaps unfairly, a person who also voted for democracy, and who feels just as shitty as I do.
And that’s the thing. Unless the person is sporting Nazi tattoos, or MAGA regalia, or you catch them in the act of committing a hate crime: you don’t know. I know this. I know better than to hate everyone I see and assume they’re responsible for what happened this past Tuesday. But my emotions don’t know it. They haven’t got the memo yet.
So I’m not going to speculate on what brought about the disaster of November 5, 2024. And I’m not going to speculate on what the right response to it is. Right now I’m connecting with a multitude of communities who do not support the result. Eventually, I’ll find one or two that suit me best. Eventually, I will come up with a plan of action. But I’m not going to come up with a sustainable plan in my current emotional state.
So for now, I’m taking care of myself and going inward. And I am 100% certain this is the way to build the best foundation for whatever course of action I commit to when I’m ready to look outward. And that’s the goal. Not to stay buried inside, but also not to ignore what’s inside. Because if I ignore it, I won’t be able to act with purpose. I’ll just be in a perpetual cycle of reacting to the bad shit. The bad shit thrives on the reactionary response. And we need a strategic response, now, not a reactionary one.
Take care of yourself, please. We need you.