Twice
A person is not meant to experience Donald Trump winning against an overqualified woman twice in one lifetime
The first election I remember was 2008. The good guy won. The guy my parents had supported in the primaries won. In 2012 I watched as the good guy won once again, easily.
Despite 2020 being synonymous with awfulness at this point, I still think of 2016 as the worst year ever. Brexit and Trump’s election marked the beginning of far right extremism taking over the West.
In 2016 my family watched the results come in and slowly it became apparent there would be no relief. I was 15 and went to school shell shocked. I cried all day and I was angry at anyone at school who tried to act like it was all going to be okay.
The second time I experienced an overqualified woman lose to Donald Trump I watched the coverage on PBS with my younger sister. Once again they didn’t want to believe what we all were seeing. We didn’t either.
But unlike in 2016 there were no warning signs I was ignoring. The far left party swept recent French elections. Labour is in power in the UK for the first time since 2010. In Brazil Lula defeated Bolsonaro and democracy prevailed even after an attempted coup. The good guys were supposed to win again. We weren't going back!
Like in 2016, I went to bed before the results were called, hopeful. This time I wasn't as devastated when I saw the results first thing.
In 2016 in response to her loss, I idolized Hillary Clinton. I read What Happened. I reread her concession speech again and again. I found comfort in the fact that a majority of voters chose the right answer. They voted for a woman who believed in civil rights and humanity. Fuck the electoral college!
Today I don’t have that solace. While millions of Americans chose Kamala Harris to lead us, millions more chose a man who had been found liable for a sexual assault. It wasn't even close.
Same as in 2016 I look around at people on the train or walking the street and I wonder if they chose basic humanity or not.
Being a woman means interacting with men and knowing that well over half of them in this country at best were willing to write off Trump’s history of sexual violence and plans to do away with abortion.
I know that Harris’s platform was not perfect. She spoke about protecting fracking and standing with Israel. Whether her actual policies would have been the same we will never know.
I don’t know what the next four years have in store for us. Project 2025 is only a starting point.
But I knew what today had in store. I know what November and December have in store. We have already lived this. What we don't know is January and February and every single day from January 21st 2025 until 2029.
So I’ll survive until then. While in 2016 I followed through on weekend plans to go see Dr. Strange with a friend, who promised everything would be fine, tonight I plan on watching Cabaret. Something about descending into Fascism. Timely!