hope ebbs and flows through american elections
Artwork by Julia Winokur.
Growing up in the United States, the first political moment I remember was Obama’s 2009 inauguration. A sense of euphoria filled the country. We had elected our first black president. We had chosen a young man who seemed to promise change and hope amidst a tumultuous time. We were making real progress here.
I remember being nine years-old, sitting in my third-grade classroom, watching my teacher wheel in an obscenely large box TV so we could watch the inauguration live. Packed like sardines, we sat around the miniscule screen. We waited patiently for the 44th president to take the stage.
Class was cancelled that day. Lesson plans: allow the children to witness history.
One of the most exciting political moments in my memory was attending a Bernie Sanders rally in 2015. With a bit of a naive twinkle in my eye, I sat on the grass of a massive amphitheatre loaded with thousands of people. We eagerly listened to his campaign promises to us. We were all ready for real systemic change. I still believe that he would have been the only person who could have sparked that change.
A lot of the political moments from then til the Election of 2020 have been formative for me. And let’s be real here: pretty much all of America’s history is political.
You may ask, what political history have we lived through thus far?
Well, while it’s always important to recognize the opportunity that growing up in the U.S. has dealt me and plenty of folks in my generation, it’s equally crucial to understand that we’ve not had the most secure existence. We are the children of Y2K. Our literal birth was thought to come in the midst of the world ending.
We were the first bunch to be born into a post-9/11 America, the first not knowing life before the internet. We’ve already lived through a massive recession. An era of mass shootings. We’re making it through a time where our reproductive rights are at risk. Where people of colour are being disgustingly targeted by law enforcement and white supremacists. We are trying to skate through early adulthood amidst an uncontrolled pandemic. We are working to the bone to survive what immense income inequality has dealt us. And we still need help rising above the repercussions of all of that.
Do not get me wrong, other generations have lived – and are living – through the exact same moments. But we do not necessarily get to harken back to the good ol’ days where college costs were within four figures. Or when it was customary to be able to buy a house. Or when people could easily start a family without financial worries. No way.
Still, we want to fix all of the issues that we are facing today. And we still have a bit of hope. Possibly less hope than the days of Obama’s inauguration, but hope is not completely lost nonetheless.
Though, from what we’ve learned so far, Donald Trump is not the guy to help us. The problem with Donald Trump’s presidency is not simply that he clearly doesn’t care about any of the aforementioned issues. The biggest, most glaring issue with Donald Trump is that he has brought far-right extremists into the mainstream. Literal KKK leaders have endorsed him. Donald Trump makes the most dreadful instances of American entitlement, bigotry, and disrespect okay. He’s enabling and enhancing some of the dirtiest, most selfish aspects of what American culture has brought us up to embody. And he’s just leading by example.
That is why the Election of 2020 has been so crucial. Nervous that Trump could easily take this election once again, I pulled an all-nighter to watch election coverage with a couple of friends. We were definitely anxious, definitely exhausted, definitely yearning for this era in history to just be over.
After about a week of expelling my nervous energy, keeping several tabs open relating to the election, witnessing a Georgia recount, biting my nails over disputed results, Joe Biden has clearly won the election fair and square. More exciting, we have elected the first woman – and a woman of colour at that – to be our vice president. Even through several failed lawsuits and demands for recounts, Trump still will not publicly recognize this. Not to mention, he is excellent at convincing his followers that the election was a fraud. That is unprecedented, and that is simply not okay.
I have hope that in January we will begin a stage of healing through the divisive nature that the Trump administration has manifested. It might take a while, but we will get there.
A Biden-Harris administration is an impressive step in the right direction. We should celebrate decency, function, and order in the White House. And we definitely need to celebrate that the administration will likely put a Band-Aid on some of the issues that have plagued our nation. But I am not convinced too much will fundamentally change. In fact, Biden has uttered those exact words to his wealthy donors himself.
This election is not the be-all and end-all for us. I worry that we have put two people who have championed mass incarceration in the White House. We have placed someone with a track record of championing war in the White House.
As a nation, we are totally justified in removing a tyrant like Donald Trump from office. But we cannot lose sight of the fact that there is a lot of work to be done. Continuously electing neoliberals is not necessarily sustainable for getting that work done.
I was not an enthusiastic Biden voter. I know that my experience as a young woman will not shift too much under his presidency. But I remind myself that I would much rather protest against Biden than Trump. I would much rather have someone in the White House who is at least partially willing to listen. And I would definitely rather have a president who is capable of showing a bit of humanity and diplomacy. Is Biden perfect? Absolutely not. But as a country, we are moving in the right direction.
Marina Martinez is an American student at the University of Edinburgh and a writer who often focuses on politics galore. She is a fierce advocate for gender equality and reproductive justice. You can read more of her thoughts and musings here.