I'm going to go into work today. I need to put on a brave face despite all the shock, depression, despair, and anger I've been swinging between these last 36 hours. I've been thinking nonstop about how to talk to my students about this, because I've been there, so there must be a way I can show them empathy, validation, and guidance. Because I've been where they are right now.
When I was 16, the country I lived in elected a president who seemed like he did not understand things. He used a phrase "fuzzy math" when responding to Al Gore's use of numbers. He tried to speak like a cowboy, even though he was from a rich family and went to boarding school. He had failed at numerous businesses, gotten C's in the prestigious college he got into because of his family's reputation and/or money, had avoided military service, and his only saving grace was being charismatic (sound familiar?). But I was 16 (in my junior year of high school). I didn't know much about politics or government. And he got elected. I couldn't believe it. It seemed like nobody could believe it. But the news was boring and hard to follow, so I didn't really pay attention. I was concerned with other things that were more immediate than politics.
During the first few months of his presidency, I was concerned with getting good grades, my girlfriend, my friends, finding new music to listen to, seeing live music, playing music (trombone and tuba), the debate team, working at a butcher shop, playing video games (Goldeneye and Mario Kart on N64 were my favorite), seeing cool movies that really made you think (The Royal Tennenbaums, Monster's Ball, Waking Life, Human Nature, The Anniversary Party, A Beautiful Mind, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Amelie, Training Day, Vanilla Sky, Blow) and some very funny satirical movies (Josie and the Pussycats, Zoolander, and Wet Hot American Summer). This is what we did in our day to day. But we were also very privileged and white, so it didn't really matter if we paid attention to politics.
And then the September 11 attacks happened. And Bush started to do things.
I spent my senior year, again, unconcerned. Bush was invading Afghanistan, which everyone seemed to agree with. And the Patriot Act, something about it being bad, but I really didn't follow it. My memories of politics are so vague from that time, because I was concerned with getting into college and going to finally live in cool-ass NYC. Everything I was obsessed with in junior year consumed me more in senior year. And I didn't take a politics, government, or economics course, I was taking AP European History. So I was not being exposed to politics. It was easy to ignore.
And then I went to college in the fall of 2002. And for all of college, I watched the Iraq War unfold, but I became politically conscious. I suddenly cared. I spent college learning as much as I could about Bush's stupid war, his stupid fiscal policies, his stupid theories on the welfare state, and how Bill Clinton was not actually the great president I thought he was. I learned about the military-industrial complex, drug war, mass incarceration, institutionalized racism, discrimination against the LGBT community, feminism and sexism. And I got the motivation to fight. I wrote letters to Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton (my senators). I joined an advocacy group and helped run the chapter on my campus (NORML). I went to hear speakers about issues that I cared about. And the whole while, I was observing and helping in classrooms as part of my degree. Then, with Iraq going horribly, in 2004, we re-elected him.
I......I was shocked. I had gone home to vote with my parents and brother, and we watched the election results with dismay. I went to sleep. I woke up. I ate breakfast without really talking much. took a train back into the city. Everyone in New York was sad. We kind of knew he'd lose (John Kerry was an intelligent lawyer who was boring, but knew policy and government really well, he had been in Congress for a while and had been a solid Democrat, but he was also rich and couldn't connect with regular voters the way Bush could - sound familiar?). It made me so unhappy. But I had to keep going. And I learned even more. Hurricane Katrina happened. And it seemed like this guy was so horrible, that the Democrats would HAVE to win back the government at some point. All this failure made me want to keep pushing, because I had so much time.
I knew that when I became a teacher, I was going to teach all of this to my students. I was going to blow their minds with truth and send them off into college to do the same investigation and learning how to fight that I did. Now I'm a teacher, and my students are going through at least one of my similar experiences - they see some rich idiot win an election because the opponent who almost all of them agree with just wasn't good enough to pull it off. And it was so close! I'm still wondering if Clinton can get enough votes to turn Pennsylvania back - some precincts in bluedy-blue Philadelphia haven't reported! She's only 70,000 votes down! What about absentee ballots?
But stop. Stop trying to fix this. You can't fix this, Adam. You can cry. You can rage. But you cannot fix this election. You can only fix the next one.
We lost because Hillary Clinton was a bad candidate. The demographics work in progressives' favor, but people didn't turn out to vote. And guess what? Here are some things that won't happen:
1) The next four years won't be maddeningly frustrating because Republicans try to disrupt everything Clinton does, investigate her constantly, spread lies about her, and have sexist death threats all the time. We won't have to watch our first female president be shit on for four years.
2) We won't watch her not be able to solve problems because of Republican obstructionism. We won't be disappointed in her because she is failing at this.
3) We won't have to spend 4 years worrying about her losing re-election because of all this.
4) We won't not know who is failing at fixing problems - we will always know that it's the Republicans who are failing. Because their policies won't work (unless they do something different, and if they do, then I'll shrug and say "fucking finally".)
But here are some things that will happen:
1) We will sigh and shake our heads when the Republicans use their bullshit tax cuts and immigration blocks and don't actually help the people who vote for them.
2) We will learn more about all the weird and illegal and unconstitutional things the Republicans are trying to do and we will critique, protest, satirize, and sue the government (donate to the ACLU, NAACP, NRDC, Planned Parenthood, and Lambda Legal!)
3) We will figure out how to convince people that government matters, that they should register to vote, and then that they should actually vote.
4) We will elevate progressive candidates to office who share our values and want to make the world better and safer. We will win the 2018 midterm elections and take back a house of Congress.
5) If the stock market crashes, we will buy low so we can sell high later.
I don't know why, but in 2004 when Kerry lost, the depression didn't set in. I kept going. I was in college, young, and ready to fight. Shit, I still am young (32). If Bernie Sanders can do what he did at 74, I can certainly do more at 32. I will teach my students how to be activists instead of apathists (I just made up that word. It means people who are apathetic). And I had help, and so do you. I was part of the generation who elected Barack Obama and then watched him flounder while in office because Congress swung to the Republicans in 2010. This happened in the 1990s too - Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 and then Congress became Republican in 1994. And he moved to the ideological center and didn't get enough done. We cannot make that mistake a third time. We need to win badly in 2018. You all can be the people who elect our next group of progressive politicians who listen to movements like Black Lives Matter and Occupy, who listen to the concerns of people who are struggling, who know the failures of Obama so we can be better and not compromise good policies that will actually help. We have to prevail. We need to be the light that spreads truth to the darkness. We need to be the love that helps those in need. We have work to do, so let's start to do it.
When I was 16, the country I lived in elected a president who seemed like he did not understand things. He used a phrase "fuzzy math" when responding to Al Gore's use of numbers. He tried to speak like a cowboy, even though he was from a rich family and went to boarding school. He had failed at numerous businesses, gotten C's in the prestigious college he got into because of his family's reputation and/or money, had avoided military service, and his only saving grace was being charismatic (sound familiar?). But I was 16 (in my junior year of high school). I didn't know much about politics or government. And he got elected. I couldn't believe it. It seemed like nobody could believe it. But the news was boring and hard to follow, so I didn't really pay attention. I was concerned with other things that were more immediate than politics.
During the first few months of his presidency, I was concerned with getting good grades, my girlfriend, my friends, finding new music to listen to, seeing live music, playing music (trombone and tuba), the debate team, working at a butcher shop, playing video games (Goldeneye and Mario Kart on N64 were my favorite), seeing cool movies that really made you think (The Royal Tennenbaums, Monster's Ball, Waking Life, Human Nature, The Anniversary Party, A Beautiful Mind, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Amelie, Training Day, Vanilla Sky, Blow) and some very funny satirical movies (Josie and the Pussycats, Zoolander, and Wet Hot American Summer). This is what we did in our day to day. But we were also very privileged and white, so it didn't really matter if we paid attention to politics.
And then the September 11 attacks happened. And Bush started to do things.
I spent my senior year, again, unconcerned. Bush was invading Afghanistan, which everyone seemed to agree with. And the Patriot Act, something about it being bad, but I really didn't follow it. My memories of politics are so vague from that time, because I was concerned with getting into college and going to finally live in cool-ass NYC. Everything I was obsessed with in junior year consumed me more in senior year. And I didn't take a politics, government, or economics course, I was taking AP European History. So I was not being exposed to politics. It was easy to ignore.
And then I went to college in the fall of 2002. And for all of college, I watched the Iraq War unfold, but I became politically conscious. I suddenly cared. I spent college learning as much as I could about Bush's stupid war, his stupid fiscal policies, his stupid theories on the welfare state, and how Bill Clinton was not actually the great president I thought he was. I learned about the military-industrial complex, drug war, mass incarceration, institutionalized racism, discrimination against the LGBT community, feminism and sexism. And I got the motivation to fight. I wrote letters to Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton (my senators). I joined an advocacy group and helped run the chapter on my campus (NORML). I went to hear speakers about issues that I cared about. And the whole while, I was observing and helping in classrooms as part of my degree. Then, with Iraq going horribly, in 2004, we re-elected him.
I......I was shocked. I had gone home to vote with my parents and brother, and we watched the election results with dismay. I went to sleep. I woke up. I ate breakfast without really talking much. took a train back into the city. Everyone in New York was sad. We kind of knew he'd lose (John Kerry was an intelligent lawyer who was boring, but knew policy and government really well, he had been in Congress for a while and had been a solid Democrat, but he was also rich and couldn't connect with regular voters the way Bush could - sound familiar?). It made me so unhappy. But I had to keep going. And I learned even more. Hurricane Katrina happened. And it seemed like this guy was so horrible, that the Democrats would HAVE to win back the government at some point. All this failure made me want to keep pushing, because I had so much time.
I knew that when I became a teacher, I was going to teach all of this to my students. I was going to blow their minds with truth and send them off into college to do the same investigation and learning how to fight that I did. Now I'm a teacher, and my students are going through at least one of my similar experiences - they see some rich idiot win an election because the opponent who almost all of them agree with just wasn't good enough to pull it off. And it was so close! I'm still wondering if Clinton can get enough votes to turn Pennsylvania back - some precincts in bluedy-blue Philadelphia haven't reported! She's only 70,000 votes down! What about absentee ballots?
But stop. Stop trying to fix this. You can't fix this, Adam. You can cry. You can rage. But you cannot fix this election. You can only fix the next one.
We lost because Hillary Clinton was a bad candidate. The demographics work in progressives' favor, but people didn't turn out to vote. And guess what? Here are some things that won't happen:
1) The next four years won't be maddeningly frustrating because Republicans try to disrupt everything Clinton does, investigate her constantly, spread lies about her, and have sexist death threats all the time. We won't have to watch our first female president be shit on for four years.
2) We won't watch her not be able to solve problems because of Republican obstructionism. We won't be disappointed in her because she is failing at this.
3) We won't have to spend 4 years worrying about her losing re-election because of all this.
4) We won't not know who is failing at fixing problems - we will always know that it's the Republicans who are failing. Because their policies won't work (unless they do something different, and if they do, then I'll shrug and say "fucking finally".)
But here are some things that will happen:
1) We will sigh and shake our heads when the Republicans use their bullshit tax cuts and immigration blocks and don't actually help the people who vote for them.
2) We will learn more about all the weird and illegal and unconstitutional things the Republicans are trying to do and we will critique, protest, satirize, and sue the government (donate to the ACLU, NAACP, NRDC, Planned Parenthood, and Lambda Legal!)
3) We will figure out how to convince people that government matters, that they should register to vote, and then that they should actually vote.
4) We will elevate progressive candidates to office who share our values and want to make the world better and safer. We will win the 2018 midterm elections and take back a house of Congress.
5) If the stock market crashes, we will buy low so we can sell high later.
I don't know why, but in 2004 when Kerry lost, the depression didn't set in. I kept going. I was in college, young, and ready to fight. Shit, I still am young (32). If Bernie Sanders can do what he did at 74, I can certainly do more at 32. I will teach my students how to be activists instead of apathists (I just made up that word. It means people who are apathetic). And I had help, and so do you. I was part of the generation who elected Barack Obama and then watched him flounder while in office because Congress swung to the Republicans in 2010. This happened in the 1990s too - Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 and then Congress became Republican in 1994. And he moved to the ideological center and didn't get enough done. We cannot make that mistake a third time. We need to win badly in 2018. You all can be the people who elect our next group of progressive politicians who listen to movements like Black Lives Matter and Occupy, who listen to the concerns of people who are struggling, who know the failures of Obama so we can be better and not compromise good policies that will actually help. We have to prevail. We need to be the light that spreads truth to the darkness. We need to be the love that helps those in need. We have work to do, so let's start to do it.