I’ve been experiencing some complex thoughts and emotions over the past few days, and have found myself more emotional than I expected to be. I think part of the reason is that my cynicism and anxiety has run so deep that I really never expected Trump to lose. After four years of living in this nightmare, I almost don’t even know what to do with this sensation of relief, as if I’m internally poking it with a stick, afraid to get too close.
Acknowledging and allowing myself to feel joy and hope has itself been strange. I have a complicated relationship with unfettered happiness. But beyond that, I am struggling through the cognitive dissonance of the immediate joy that I feel coupled with the dread of knowing that nothing is going to fundamentally change. That isn’t to say that there won’t be concrete changes for the net positive of humanity, particularly for the minorities that have been directly targeted by Trump. I am in no way trying to minimize that. However, the reality is that we will continue living in a status quo oligarchy under a moderate president who doesn’t see a need for revolutionary change. For many of us who struggle, our lives will not materially improve in many ways. The crushing boot of neoliberalism , capitalism and austerity will continue to prevent the majority of us from thriving.
Then, of course, there are my complicated feelings about Joe Biden himself. In spite of my cynicism, my default is to give people the benefit of the doubt and to feel empathy and affinity for them. I see Biden as a person who is uninspiring and problematic, but also fundamentally decent. Parts of his record over the years have been extremely concerning. And yet it’s hard not to be moved by his poignant life story and his love for his family. Ultimately, my hope would be to see the deep love and grace and magnanimity that he clearly exhibits for his loved ones applied in his political ideology and policies, but that simply hasn’t been the case.
The fact is that Biden wasn’t my first or second or even my fifth choice for president. His ideology and vision simply do not align with mine fundamentally, and in many ways I view his presidency as an inevitable trajectory of a Democratic Party that has moved increasingly right and abandoned its core principles and base.
I think about the excitement I felt at the prospect of a Bernie Sanders presidency, and all the hard work and genuine passion I put into electing him. And I can’t help but think about just how much better it would feel to be celebrating President-Elect Sanders right now.
It’s bittersweet. It’s hard not to feel extremely disappointed. And yet here I am, at the same time, feeling all this joy and relief. It’s a frustrating position to be in. There is a futility to it. A sense that I should just suck it up and allow myself to be present with whatever positive feelings I have wrung out of this for as long they last. Don’t I deserve that—don’t we all deserve that—after four whole years of being held hostage by a cruel demagogue? Maybe the only answer is to hold space for all these conflicting feelings and choose to be at peace with them. To allow ourselves celebrate, with the knowledge that it will be temporary and the conviction not to become complacent.
What I do know is this: the struggle continues. Biden will give us a better world than Trump did, or that any Republican would, but that’s a low fucking bar. We all deserve better than simply not living in a nightmare ruled by a ruthless tyrant, and I won’t stop hoping and fighting for that. I hope you won’t, either.
