Our founder wonders how it’s possible that we ended up in this situation yet again.
The elevator doors in my office lobby slid open a few minutes after 9 a.m. on election day. A well put-together, gray-haired white woman in her late 60s stepped in before me. I then caught the eye of a young black woman hustling toward the entrance mouthing for me to hold the elevator. She breathed a deep sigh of relief when she hopped on.
As the doors closed the three of us in, the young woman pointed at my “I Voted 2024” sticker on my leopard print sweater and said, “I can’t wait to get my sticker.” I told her I was up at 6:30 a.m. to do my part, and that it choked me up. The older woman piped in, “I’m so scared.” No candidate’s name had been spoken by any of us, but we all knew. Three women strangers, likely at very different places in our lives, and we all had a singular hope that didn’t have to be named. We needed Kamala Harris to win. For us, for all women.
Throughout the day, I kept thinking about the absurd position our country is in. We used to have elections where most of us thought we’d vote for the man (almost always a man) whose platform aligned with our beliefs or desires and not the one whose didn’t match as much. Before 2016, I never once worried what would become of our country if the wrong person won; I didn’t worry if we’d still have a country. I waffle between this thought, work emails, a desk salad at lunch, and checking on my kids at home on their day off.
On election day 2016, I was full of pride for getting to vote for the first female presidential candidate. Sure, Hillary wasn’t exactly someone I wanted to hang out with at a cocktail party, but I had no doubt she’d do a good job in this position that she so clearly deserved. By that evening, when I was out having dinner in Manhattan with a friend who was in from out of town, we saw our first MAGA-hat wearing bros celebrating in the street. I headed home on the subway in confusion. I ended the night fighting panic attacks as I tried to fall asleep.
By 2020, I was desperate but no longer hopeful. I remember taking a long walk in the fall leaves at Prospect Park in Brooklyn as we waited those fretful few days between the election and Joe Biden being declared the victor. As I exited through one of the eerily dark stone-arch tunnels, the light at the other end was bright. The vision wasn’t lost on me. I took a picture of the metaphor-come-to-life and held my breath.
As the election approached this year, I was decidedly numb while our country seems to be on the precipice of doom. Is this a trauma response? Is this just very GenX of me? As a generation, we’ve seen some stuff in our lifetime and we know the best of intentions just don’t cut it in most cases. I’m not eager like the younger woman in the elevator. I’m not scared like the older woman. I am detached. Sidney Morss totally nailed my generational feeling (and my plans to vote day-of and ignore the returns until someone told me what the outcome was):
As I head home after work to my two teenagers who have missed being able to vote in their first election by four measly months, I’m on alert. The fear of potential violence has been mentioned by several people and I’m reminded of my subway ride home in 2016. An extremely angry man stalked through the crowded subway cars screaming that he’d kill anyone who voted for Trump. We all believed him.
I choose to avoid the subway and take a peaceful ride home on the ferry. The sun has set far too early thanks to the time change just two days ago. But a bright crescent moon hangs over the city and every building that dresses itself up in lights has on red, white, and blue. It’s surprisingly moving.
Against my own better judgment, I switch on MSNBC when I get home. I feel myself tense up to the sound of the anchors excitedly volleying predictions back and forth. I have a Pavlovian response to the short musical prelude played every time a new state’s polls have closed. When my daughter walks in, I can tell by my clipped behavior that the anxiety I’ve been actively trying to suppress is bubbling up from somewhere deep inside me. Maybe I should get in a bath?
Instead, I clean dishes in hot, hot water and feel a hangnail throbbing with my pulse on my middle finger; a painful reminder that seems an apt symbol tonight. It seems to be saying, “Don’t forget. Don’t forget. Don’t forget.” From the living room I hear more states being called for Trump. None of them are surprises: Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia. I had no faith in states like these flipping but somehow just hearing that enough of the people in them support a misogynist, racist, criminal nominee breaks my heart a little more.
I know for a fact that I cannot stay up for results. I debate calling it before 10 p.m., turning off all alerts and letting myself sleep. Me watching Steve Kornacki salivate over rural counties in Wisconsin won’t change the outcome. Just as I nearly convince myself to head to bed, some positive reporting comes through in three crucial swing states. This is how they keep me watching, I tell myself. So I make a compromise and get in bed and leave the TV on until I get too sleepy.
When I wake up way before my alarm, I resist reaching for my phone immediately. But the cortisol is already pumping and I can’t not know any longer. At 6:23 a.m., I tap my phone to life and look for the news.
And then I know.
I head to the bathroom and pull my hair back in a tight bun and put on my makeup in harsh streaks like it’s war paint. I stand for a few minutes in my closet not knowing how to pick something to wear to work the day it feels like your country is over. I consider black for mourning, but decide on a Handmaid’s-Tale-red dress. As I walk in Manhattan, I’m suddenly suspicious of every face I see that doesn’t look like it’s grieving. There’s a palpable memory of what 2016-2020 felt like, like I’d suddenly been made aware of the traitors in our midst.
On my commute, I read the rightful outrage on social media about how we let this happen again. I’ve seen several people say that this country is getting what it deserves. I know why they would say that. But I actually think our country doesn’t deserve this. I think our country deserves so much better. Even for people who would vote against their own interests when it comes to their rights and support from their government. Yes, especially in this election, but in all of the other ones as well.
I want our country to join much of the rest of the world in believing that women are fit to lead. I know that Harris was the better, more capable, smarter person who could have led our country with dignity. I know that she is the embodiment of everything parents hope their kids become. For those of us that are first-generation children with funny names, I longed for Kamala Harris to fulfill the most cliched sort of American dream that immigrant parents have for their kids.
I know the refrain: You can be anything in America. Even president.
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Lili Zarghami lives with her teenagers in Brooklyn. She’s been writing for and providing editorial direction at women’s websites like Redbook, HGTV, Better Homes & Gardens and more since the turn of the century. She can remember the addresses of all the places she was a latchkey kid but has no idea what her email password is.
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