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Election Day One 8:00 AM
I start my day by reading the roundup of late night comedy. Last night Jimmy Kimmel said, "The best way to describe how I'm feeling right now -- it's somewhere between Christmas Eve and the night before a liver transplant." I miss my sense of humor, which went packing in November 2016. I must depend on the humor of others. I have had glimmers of humor around the edges. I have faith it will return.
8:15
Store fronts in major cities are boarded up to prevent looting. Residents have stocked up on food and are hunkering down. Here in my small town in NorCal there is nothing more wrong than has already been wrong for the past four years. But seeing pictures of the boarded-up windows in DC, I feel like I am living in someone else's country in another time.
8:30
It’s on, voting is happening. I have fortunately survived
these four years. Not everyone has. I vividly recall the horror of Election
Night 2016; the rage, the grief, and the heart-stopping vision of what was to
come. I sat in my husband’s lap and asked him to hold me and I wept in his arms.
The night after the 2016 election, some friends came to my house for our
monthly book group. One of them brought her 20-something daughter. The young
woman is an environmental protection activist and deeply aware of the dangers
ahead because of climate chaos. She baked an election cake the day before to
celebrate our first woman president. When they came into the house for the book
group, she carried the cake, uncut. I took the cake from her, handed it to her
mother, and embraced her as I said, “I’m so sorry for you and all the young
people.” We wept in one another’s arms. Last night I dreamt that she came to
visit me riding a magnificent charcoal horse.
9:00
I go for my daily walk behind Lake Mendocino where I take my
thoughts into the wild. My beloved NorCal is burning up in climate chaos. Will
today’s election results restart the process of making the changes needed for a
viable future for humans on Earth? It may already be too late for the trees and
other living creatures in my beloved homeland.
11:30
I try to concentrate on work. It will take days to count the
votes, and there will be no result by tonight.
12:00 Noon
The brightest, shiniest moment was when we found out Obama
had won in 2008. Oh what a night. I had friends in the house and we were
watching Jon Stewart. He said Obama had taken Ohio and that put him over the
top for a win. We didn’t know if that was true or not because it was The Daily
Show, so we flipped the channel to MSNBC and sure enough, Obama had won for
real. My phone rang at that instant and it was my husband Ron who was in
Chicago with his family. He was calling to celebrate that Obama had won. I burst
into tears. Couldn’t speak. I heard his relatives whooping in the background,
Black folks who grew up in poverty in the ghetto. Descendants of slaves who
endured centuries of oppression in this cursed country. He asked me, “Are you
crying, baby?” and I was speechless, could barely squeak out a yes. Each of my
children called, so excited, talking a mile a minute in their new future. My
friends at my house were on their cell phones with their children. The exhilaration
we felt! When I think of that night now, I want to cry for all we have lost and
all that has been taken from our children in the past four years. Can we please
begin to climb out of this pit?
2:00
I finish a conference call for work. It was a welcome
distraction. No one mentioned the election or the disastrous state of the
nation. We focused on the project before us and left the planet to its own
devices for a short time.
2:15
I’m thinking positive thoughts and practicing patience. It’s
going to be an excruciating week. We are not a patient nation.
2:30
It’s a clear and sunny autumn day. The birds hop in the
bottlebrush tree outside the window of my study. There is a breeze, which is
not good at this time of year in this dry land at the end of summer in the place
where I live. If a spark of stray fire catches, it could burn down a town. Yet
everything looks so normal. It feels a bit like the placid scene in a sci-fi
thriller right before the aliens arrive and start offing people. I check the
online news and read that Typhoid Donny has formally started the process of
pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord. He has no shame. Biden says
he’ll put us straight back into the Accord on Day One if he wins. The Accord is
essentially just a promise to set and reach a goal, but I want that promise.
Bring the promise, Biden.
3:00
Polls close in FL and GA in one hour. Will this be a
nail-biter or not? The ground moves beneath my feet as I feel the 2016 Election
PTSD creep in.
3:30
Puerto Rico is voting about whether to become a state. Why
would anywhere want to join this dysfunctional nation? All we did for Puerto
Rico is nothing. It got devastated by a hurricane and Typhoid Donny said “not
my problem.”
4:00
Results are starting to come in but there is not enough information
to figure anything out. I keep reading things Republicans have done to try to
subvert the election process. Setting up false ballot drop-off boxes, running
Democratic voter convoys off the road, going to court to prevent mailed-in
ballots from being counted, making threatening robocalls to voters, and urging followers
(i.e., white supremacists) to harass and threaten Democratic voters (i.e.,
black voters) in any way they can, including by pointing guns at them. I don’t
understand the mindset, the internal narrative that can justify these things
for these people. They drank the Kool-Aid and can no longer distinguish right
from wrong. How do they live with themselves after doing things like cheering
for the separation of children from their parents at the border or the push to
put ACB on the Supreme Court? (They should have called the push to confirm ACB
“Project Warp Speed.” What kind of childish idiot calls any government project
“Warp Speed”?) Moscow Mitch is obviously not afraid to go to hell. I figure he
doesn’t believe in an afterlife. I need chocolate.
5:00
We don’t know anything.
5:20
Moscow Mitch is still in his seat. No surprise there but it
makes me furious. KY votes the devil into the Senate yet again.
5:30
I make scrambled eggs for dinner. I can’t think to cook
anything more complicated and I need something light on my stomach. I also eat
some apples and honey, as if it’s Rosh Hashanah. Am I subconsciously wishing
for a new beginning?
5:45
There’s something awful about the way most of the old-time
slave states go for Typhoid Donny and the other states for Biden. The Civil War
never ended.
6:00
Why do we still have the Electoral College? Can’t we get rid
of that dinosaur already?
6:15
My Patronus is my
grandchildren.
6:20
My husband turns to me in a panic and asks, “Where do we go
if he wins again?” I tell him to just stop. Be positive. Biden will win. (When
Reagan was elected I went to the New Zealand embassy and talked with them about
emigration. Good times.)
6:40
I don’t understand how they can declare a winner in states
with only 65% of the vote in. Or less. How can I believe these projections?
7:00
We don’t know anything.
7:15
Remind me why the country needs Kentucky again.
7:30
I have to reread the last Harry Potter book when he defeats
Voldemort again, to remind me it’s possible.
8:00
Polls close in my home state. There is nothing to know
tonight except that once again the power of Typhoid Donny to gain votes was
underestimated. The pollsters were far off the mark yet again.
9:00
I’m done. I decide to go to bed, to dream of my beautiful
grandsons. I hope there will be a future for them when I wake up in the
morning.
Election Day Two 2:00 AM
My husband is not in my bed.
6:00
My husband comes back to bed, crashing around the room and
flashing lights, like only a man can. I wonder if he was looking at election
returns. We don’t speak so I don’t know. I go back to sleep.
7:15
I am up and I wonder if this is the ending or the beginning.
7:30
I think of the expression “it’s not the end of the world” and
I think well actually it could be. I’m afraid to plug in and find out what’s going
on out there.
7:45
A buck with a rack of antlers stands as if posing for a
magazine photographer on my neighbor’s lawn across the street. Little yellow
finches perch in my bottlebrush tree. It’s another crisp autumn day in scorched
but glorious NorCal. Beauty walks in the world for a while longer.
8:00
I go to the online news. No outcome. I know that the ballots
now being counted in the swing states are mail-ins and those will lean
Democrat. We knew going into this that a protracted period of counting would
occur, but it’s another thing to live through it. The fact that it's this close
is horrifying and does not bode well for the future of this country, the world,
and on a personal level for my children and grandchildren. Even when (being
optimistic) Biden wins, we must live in this country loaded with millions of
people who still think Typhoid Donny was a good choice, and would choose him
again to lead us to our doom. They may be in the minority, but that doesn’t
diminish the fact that there are so many of them. The pollsters once again
scratch their heads and wonder how they could be so far off in their
predictions. I’ll tell them why. They don’t count Typhoid Donny’s followers.
They don’t poll them. They don’t ask them their opinion. No wonder these people
are angry. Who do the pollsters poll and how? Disenfranchised and marginalized
people come in many colors. As long as divide and conquer is the norm, we will
never come together to agree on anything.
9:00
Typhoid Donny says he wants the Supreme Court to stop the
vote count in states where he is ahead and to have the count continue in states
where he is behind. And his followers have no problem with that line of thinking.
He is right about one thing. He really could shoot someone dead on the street and
his followers would love him anyway.
9:30
Mississippi voted yesterday to stop using the Confederate
flag as part of the state flag. Are you kidding me? The Civil War officially
ended in 1865. Same year they abolished slavery. I guess Mississippi remains
nostalgic for the institution of slavery.
10:00
Ron is still asleep. I think perhaps he was up all night.
1:00
He was up all night. He couldn’t sleep so he listened to
music and watched clips from old movies. I went to the grocery store and he was
awake when I returned. After lunch, I went for a walk in the great outdoors as
I do every morning. Things are looking up. Biden has won WI and will probably
win MI. Typhoid Donny has started kicking, screaming, litigating, and generally
throwing a toddler tantrum. But it won’t
do him any good. Biden may not even need PA at this rate. I am disappointed
that the Dems did not flip the Senate. That will make things tough. It’s a
stark reminder of just how backward this country is at its roots. Moscow Mitch
has permission to continue doing what he does best. Obstruction. He has no
skill at legislating or even building anything. He’s an expert at standing in
the middle of the road with his hand up and at punting to the judiciary. He
thinks everything will be resolved in court and Congress will become obsolete.
This is not what the founders intended by the creation of the federal courts.
3:00
Typhoid Donny says he will “take this to the Supreme Court.”
Take what? Legitimate votes are being counted. What is there to litigate? Biden
is almost at 270. Obviously, even when Biden gets the votes and the Electoral
College certifies his win, Typhoid Donny will not concede. I hope Biden is
declared the winner soon. Please put us out of our misery.
4:00
I’m thinking chocolate brownies for dinner.
7:00
We watch a John Cleese film for some laughs and to take our
minds off this madness. John Cleese for president.
9:15 PM
I floss my teeth and lose myself in a good book. I hope Ron can
sleep tonight.
Election Day Three 7:30 AM
I plug in and read the late night comedy roundup while
sipping my morning matcha. Jimmy Kimmel says “I thought if you have an election
that lasts more than 48 hours you’re supposed to seek medical attention.” Trevor
Noah, speaking about the legalization of hard drugs in OR, says “At least
Oregon has a backup plan if Biden loses.”
1:00
Apparently Typhoid Donny has proclaimed himself the winner
numerous times while simultaneously claiming the election is fraudulent and
demanding that they stop counting legitimate ballots. He has either won an
illegitimate election or lost one that will go on forever.
3:00
We are packing to go to Portland to visit the grandchildren.
Since they legalized psilocybin mushrooms in OR, if Biden loses, we may be
there for a while. (Not to worry, though, since Biden will win. I have faith.)
6:00
There are no definitive election results. They are still
counting ballots. Typhoid Donny is still thrashing and fuming. Biden is still
urging patience.
9:00
Even with no conclusion, all signs point toward a Biden and
Harris win. We go to sleep hoping this misery will end soon.
Election Day Four 12 Noon (written in the car on Highway 5)
Online news says PA is nearing completion of the tally and Biden
will win. I’m glad to be unplugged and offline today while traveling to
Portland. I can do without hearing how Typhoid Donny is thrashing around in the
throes of his loss. They will probably have to shoot him with an elephant
tranquilizer dart, drag him out of the White House, and put him on a helicopter
to FL in January. FL can have him. They deserve him. They earned him with the
malfeasance that gave us W over Gore in 2000. The past four years have been so
bad that W has begun to look like a kindly, misinformed, bumbling, slightly
senile grandpa. It’s shocking how good W looks in retrospect compared to this.
And we had a countdown clock on our wall for eight years! I guess the lesson
there is “it could always be worse.” It was.
Election Day Five 9:30 AM
We are getting ready to sit down to breakfast with our two sons,
daughter-in-law, and two grandsons when the news breaks. My daughter-in-law
calls me over and shows me the news on her phone. I whoop. I dance around the
living room with my grandson singing, “I love my new president.” My children connect
with their friends, sharing jubilant texts and looking at responses from around
the country and the world. We break out a bottle of champagne with breakfast
and toast to the future. I hold my grandson in my lap and fight back tears. I
remember 2016, weeping in my husband’s arms. I try not to weep with joy since I
don’t wish to alarm my grandson. It is a sweet moment that I will always
remember to counteract my memory of 2016. That was then. Now I have this.
11:00
I watch Van Jones break down on TV as he says, “It’s easier
to be a parent today…. This is vindication for a lot of people who have
suffered.” People are gathering in BLM Plaza in DC and in front of the White
House with signs that say, “You’re fired.” Revenge is sweet. Victory is sweet.
1:00
I spend my day crawling around the floor with the
one-year-old and reading stories to the three-year-old and generally engaging
in small child shenanigans. My son, grandson, and I go for a walk in the rain. The
air is clear and smells of flowers. I bake bread and my sons bake chocolate
chip cookies.
3:00
We play happy music and dance around wildly, filled with the
joy of being alive on this historic day and experiencing it here together. Even
the baby is bopping to the beat. We celebrate a chance at a decent future. I no
longer despair for what lies ahead for my grandsons. I’m grateful that the
verdict took this long and arrived when it did so I can celebrate here with my
children and grandchildren.
5:00
I take a break from preparing dinner to watch Harris live as
she and Biden come out to speak to the nation. I unexpectedly break down in
tears when she takes the stage. Hilary paved the way for this. Four years later,
at last, a woman VP. It means that much. Many women suffered and died to get to
today. I lived to see it. From Harris’s speech:
“And to the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our
country has sent you a clear message:
Dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourself in a way
that others might not see you, simply because they’ve never seen it before. And
we will applaud you every step of the way.” What a relief to hear true,
articulate, intelligent, inspiring words coming from our nation’s leaders
again. Vocabulary is back in vogue.
6:00
Euphoria. I have spent most of my day outside time, living in
the moment with small children. Whatever troubles happen in the world, they
remain far away and don’t touch us here in this place. Love floats us above the
fray, sweet and enduring. The little arms of the three-year-old that wrap
around my neck and the babble-talk of the baby are all that matter. They are
everything. I have faith that there will be a viable future.
6:15
I turn to Ron and say, “Let’s live here.”
