I grabbed Red Bull, Tuborg Julebryg, and Haribo sweets, and I rushed to bed at 8:00 PM.
For the third straight time, I spent election day in Europe. I distorted my sleep schedule and set my alarm for 1:30 AM Denmark time, right as the Florida results should start to come in, although I could hardly sleep. Ever since Bush v Gore in 2000, I have treated election days like the Super Bowl, eagerly researching possible outcomes and cheering on my team, the Democrats. And this election, like each one before it, was the most important one of my life.
I awoke and immediately flipped on CNN International, the only American news network available in my hotel. Early returns were mixed. My heart sank a little bit, only to be buoyed by self-assured points about how suburban D.C. had not counted its returns yet and that some of the major population centers in Florida were yet to be tallied.
Like darkness gradually envelops the Danish winter, my sense of dread and fear rose as returns came in. Florida, Ohio, Iowa fell. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin stubbornly remained red. I kept trying to wish away the results, but after six hours of coverage, eventually I succumbed to the pain and tried to return to normal life.
Perpetually dazed throughout the day at work, I went back and read what I wrote on Facebook the day prior, realizing that Donald Trump would be our next President.
November 8, 2016, 7:08 AM:
“I struggled over the past few days to figure out what I could say to break through our personal, divided echo chambers on Facebook and meaningfully share my thoughts on today. In an election where new, formerly-headline-worthy news content breaks every hour, penetrating the social media bubble proves difficult, especially as media outlets that cater to all crowds provide spin and hot takes that allow each and every one of us to choose our own facts. Our echo chambers create siloed realities that numbingly barrage us with clickbait headlines we tacitly approve, regardless of the absurdity or truthiness of the content. I try to intentionally seek out content and posts that challenge my views, and I hope that friends of mine who tend to disagree with my politics take the time to read this.
Either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton will be our next president. While that statement banally and blatantly lays out the ramifications of the biggest decision America will make today, it requires some reflection.
During the primaries, I vehemently supported Bernie Sanders. His social-democratic platform and history of unapologetic progressivism match the ideals I want the Democratic party to espouse. During that campaign (and for months and years prior) I held reservations about Hillary Clinton’s policies and commitment to these progressive ideas that I hold dear. I would be lying if I said those doubts were completely banished from my brain. In my mind, Hillary continues the dominance of the New Democrat wing of the party that still clings too heavily to neoliberalism. However, these policy differences are minuscule compared to my disagreements with Donald Trump.
Donald Trump resembles the reincarnation of the Know-Nothing Party and feeds off of elite-bashing, sentiment that has effectively secured the enthusiasm of 20 million Americans. These Americans want to feel heard and have their problems understood and validated by people in charge,but for decades both parties have failed to listen to the folks who have been on the wrong end of globalization. Trump has successfully painted himself as one of them and has adopted policies that seek to empower his base at the expense of almost all other groups. By now, you all know the standard talking points about how horrifying Trump is–the Muslim ban, the hateful rhetoric toward Mexicans, the pathetic and sickening comments and behavior toward women, literally threatening to lock up political enemies, etc. I find that many of those on the left who refuse to vote for Hillary will explain away each of these alarming defects by saying that Trump doesn’t really mean any of this, or that the media is intentionally spinning his comments to the maximum benefit of Hillary. Even if there is a grain of truth in it (the Hillary campaign certainly has close ties with media sources), if Trump means 1% of the things he has said, it is too big of a risk to entertain the thought of a Trump presidency. I have zero tolerance for any of his vitriolic comments. He is a vile, vindictive vulgarian who broke political norms left and right during this campaign–he refused to release tax returns, threatens to deny the results of the election, stoked the birther movement for five years, and wants his children to continue running the Trump Organization if he wins. Without even going into his shady foreign business ties (see Newsweek article here), Trump clearly holds self-promotion and business success to be more important than the integrity of the presidency. There is a reason why our allies all around the world are scared of Trump. A Trump White House could withdraw from NATO, encourage more countries to possess nuclear weapons, and start a war because someone insulted Trump on Twitter. This man has a pathological obsession with winning and being viewed as a winner. Any dissenting critic is berated, sued, and/or embarrassed into submission for saying anything against Trump.
It pains me to see so many Americans voting against a candidate more than they are voting for a candidate, but in a hyperpartisan context of politics today, it should not come as a surprise that 82% of Republicans and Democrats have come home to vote for their respective nominees (see WSJ article here). But Trump and Clinton are not equally bad candidates. Neither are nearly as inspiring as President Obama, but Obama has set a high bar for what I expect in a president. From our current options, Hillary Clinton must become our next president. A Trump presidency could lead to a global recession due to his unpredictability and erratic behavior (see CNBC article here) and could lead to a conservative Supreme Court for the next decade.Under a Clinton presidency, not much would change, but Clinton could establish a progressive Supreme Court that could overturn Citizens United and protect the rights of the LGBTQ, minority, and immigrant communities, as well as the rights of women all over the country.
However, that Supreme Court will not happen unless the Democrats can win the Senate. If anyone reading this lives in WI, IL, PA, NH, NV, MO, or NC, especially, I implore you to go vote for the Democratic Senate candidate in your state. Without 50 seats in the Senate, there will be nothing to stop the Republican Party from increasing their steadfast commitment to inaction from 8 years of nothing to 12 years of nothing. American democracy requires a good faith effort from both parties to work together to govern, and the Republicans have proved that when one party refuses to cooperate, we all suffer, as issues like immigration, climate change, and poverty go unaddressed for years at a time.
This election is different than ones before it. Trump is the closest thing to a demagogue America has seen in decades. So while I can entertain the argument that the lesser of two evils is still evil in an electoral system like ours, I cannot entertain the arrogance of not voting as a protest to the two parties. By not voting, you have chosen not to influence who governs our country. If you truly hate the two party system, watch to see if Maine passes their initiative on ranked choice voting, which I fully support, and push your own towns/cities/states to consider it as well.
So please, vote today. You may not enjoy it, you may not be excited about it, but I don’t want anyone to wake up tomorrow and deeply regret their choice to not vote Clinton. We saw the UK’s immediate regret from Brexit (see Business Insider article here), so please halt America’s far-right, Brexit-like candidate from damning the world to more uncertainty and hate for the next four years.”
The embarrassment arrived. My UK friends would skewer me over this election; Danish colleagues would ask me how and why this happened. To the rest of the world, this did not make sense. In a moment of fury, I posted again.
November 9, 2016, 8:02 AM
“Remember this feeling. Remember how revolting tonight has been. Store this memory away, and come back to it in 2018, 2020, and in every other local, state, and national election.
Apathy has created this reality. Our generation does not vote with the consistency or conviction of older voters who hold different values than we do.
We cannot wake up and care about politics once every four years. Everyone needs to use this loss as a motivating tool to increase our engagement in the political process and to reform the Democratic Party to ensure this never happens again.
The rest of the world is looking on in shocked disgust that Trump has won, and Russia successfully influenced our election.
History will not look kindly on America today, but let’s use this as the moment that we decided, together, as a generation, to start giving a shit.”
A year later, many of my fears surrounding a Trump presidency proved true. He still has not released his tax returns or disclosed his business ties with Russia. His children still run the Trump Organization and hardly bother pretending that Donald plays no role in the business. Since his election, Trump has systematically targeted marginalized communities through travel (Muslim) bans and stripping LGBTQIA folks of their rights, to name a few. He decimated our government’s bureaucracy, leaving key diplomatic positions empty, and his guiding principle in governing has been one simple question: Did Obama do it? If so, do the opposite.
American politics remains supercharged in a hyperpartisan atmosphere of mutual distrust and tribalism. Activism flourishes on both sides. On one hand you have the rise of alt-right and white nationalist groups, who espouse hate speech, violence, and explicit racism, and on the other hand you have a flurry of progressive activism, frequently driven forward by women, immigrants, LGBTQIA folks, and other marginalized communities in the name of equality, liberty, and love.
But this is exhausting. When Trump went through the primary, and then the general, and then his inauguration, we kept saying that this was not normal–that we could not let this become normal. Fighting that normalization takes significant effort, and a year later we are so inundated with norm-defying decisions and despicable behavior that we hardly are shocked anymore when Trump fights politicians from Puerto Rico on Twitter in the aftermath of an historically deadly hurricane that traumatized the citizens of Puerto Rico.
Sam and I started this blog in hopes of fighting the normalization of Trump, but we lost steam. Over the summer our motivation to write waned, and we went a few months without a post. But with the victories in Virginia, New Jersey, Maine, and Washington yesterday, we need to pick ourselves back up. One year out from the 2018 midterms, Democrats need to stop re-litigating the 2016 primary and focus on winning elections up and down the ballot in order to combat the Trump presidency.
I believe the Democratic Party as a whole represents a more promising future for our country, and I will fight like hell for the policies I prefer, but we need to allow room for difference while still supporting eventual candidates. But to get the best debate and the best candidates, we as Democrats need to encourage participation in the party from independents across the political spectrum–not just the “white working class”, but the democratic socialists and progressives who rightfully question the infrastructure of the Democratic Party.
We all need to do our part. Stay educated. Question news sources. Debate policy. Inform others. Embrace empathy. Acknowledge differences with others, but try to find common ground.
So with that I ask you to do two things: think back to how you felt on election day in 2016, and use that anger as motivation to help the progressive cause through the 2018 midterms.
Purple State Progressive 