Four years ago, I went into Election Day with so much hope. I was excited to vote for Hillary and elect our first Madam President. But I couldn’t deny the pit in my stomach at the mere chance Trump could win. I felt sick that Republicans had allowed him so close to the Oval Office—this alone obliterated any respect I had for the party, the weak men and women who would rather risk America’s ruin than lose an election. How was the danger he posed to the republic not obvious? I still can’t understand that.
On election night, I had left my office in downtown San Francisco with several states still in play, but by the time I got home to the Castro, key states were starting to go for Trump. I opened my computer and watched the 538 Election Forecast tick toward a Trump victory. The tears started to flow and I couldn’t do anything to stop them. Will was already at the election “party” we had planned to attend. I asked him to please come home—I did not want to be with other people while I was already so upset, but I also didn’t want to be alone. But Will was not the kind of boyfriend to leave a party—even a depressing party— because his girlfriend asked him to. He told me our friend Evan was on his way and would stop by our house to come get me. Evan is a good friend but not one who had seen me ugly cry—that changed as soon as I opened the door. We walked to the house party—hosted by someone in the neighborhood that Clare knew—and rang the bell. Someone let us in and we walked into what felt like a wake. Clare was there and we hugged and cried. We got settled in the living room and numbly watched the returns come in, as we cried and poured glass after glass of wine. We were perhaps an odd group—besides Clare, Evan, Will, and me, all the other people there were older gay men I had never met. But, for reasons I’ve never been able to describe well, it was perhaps the most comforting group I could have been with. I was glad I hadn’t stayed home by myself.
I’m not ashamed that I cried on Election Night 2016. “Election night crybabies” are favorite punching bags of Fox News hosts and their devotees. Fuck ‘em. I was right to cry. My instincts screamed—we could not give the most powerful office to a vile, corrupt, incompetent man without disastrous consequences. Days later, I was on the phone with my mom trying to explain why I was so upset. I remember being surprised when I heard the words “people are going to die” escape from my lips.
And here we are four years later, approaching a quarter million dead Americans in an out of control pandemic. Officially six dead children in the custody/cages of our border officials. At least 90 Kurdish civilians killed when we abandoned our allies in northern Syria, including a 34-year-old female politician brutalized and shot multiple times on the side of a highway. A young woman protesting white supremacy in Charlottesville—was the driver of the car that bulldozed her a “very fine person”? How many American soldiers killed by a Taliban collecting bounties from Russia, while our president knew and did nothing?
Ideals are dying alongside people: our common sense of purpose as Americans, the belief that we can accomplish greatness, our sense of decency. I’m afraid democracy is dying. There has such an erosion of trust, surely now some people say “why bother with democracy at all?”. They see a system supposedly beyond repair and are prepared to throw in the towel.
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My life is vastly different than it was four years ago. I live on the opposite side of the country now, in an apartment with no roommates for the first time in my life (!) (besides my pup, of course). I’ve taken risks and accomplished goals. I designed the house my parents live in and now have a new job with a firm that I love. I’ve made some wonderful new friends.
But I think one of the biggest differences between now and then is that a naïveté in me has died—an innocent belief that people would easily recognize and repudiate evil. I believed that when faced with the choice, people would do the right thing. But now after witnessing countless obscenities and casual instances of cruelty from this administration and its supporters, I understand that is not a given. Greed, lust for power, and compensation for personal insecurities are intense motivators. I’m reminded of the quote from Reinhold Niehbur:
Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
The America I love is hard to recognize now. I fear she will be dead too if we have to endure another four years of President Trump. If he wins/“wins” this election, expect a “President for Life” by the end of his second term.
This is how I feel going into Election Day 2020: extremely anxious. I want to believe that voters will turn out in historic numbers and together we will decisively reject Donald Trump. I want to believe in the event of a close election, the sanctity of the process will hold—that all votes will be counted and the candidates will accept the results. But I can’t trust these hopes—the void left by my old naïveté won’t allow it.
Vote because our lives depend on it. Vote because our children deserve so much better than the existence we currently endure. Vote because you love freedom and you love life. Vote because you care about your fellow Americans. There’s only one team on the ballot that shares these values, and you know which one it is.
