Hopepunk

It’s (the morning of) election eve 2024, and given the stakes here, I figured I’d actually ramble for a little bit.

Anyone reading this around the time of publication knows what the stakes are, and if someone in the indeterminate future is reading this, historians are either looking at 2024 in wonderment at how we got to this point, or aren’t allowed to look at it because history isn’t a thing that exists outside of propaganda. Whatever the case, no need to do a deep dive into the specifics right now.

Still and all, believe it or not, I’m actually feeling hopeful that we’re going to make it through the next day (and the coming weeks) with Harris in the White House and our democracy intact.

I hesitate to describe this as optimism. I think there’s a definite difference between optimism, which is often seen as (even if not intended as) ignoring reality and potential downsides in favor of blindly professing that “everything is going to be great, you’ll see”, and hope, which recognizes the downsides but also believes that better outcomes are still possible. And, personally, I strive for a more hopepunk attitude, which starts with “there’s a chance things can be better” and goes on to include “and I’m going to do what I can to make sure that’s what happens, goddammit”.

But the hope is definitely there. And I think there are good reasons for that. Others have written about this far more, in far more depth, and in far more detail than I can (in particular, I recommend Heather Cox Richardson, Jay Kuo, and Solarbird), but here’s a bit of a rundown of the key things that are keeping me from full-on panic, despair, and FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt):

• We’ve had midterms and local elections, but this is the first post-Dobbs presidential election. Every election since that decision was handed down has been showing that the reality of losing the protections of Roe v. Wade is making a difference, and I don’t think that effect has worn off.
• Related to the above, early voting numbers (which, yes, only tell a small part of the story, and there’s varying data from various areas, so there’s a certain amount of educated guesswork in any analysis) are showing strong turnouts from women, apparently across party lines. And while it’s not quantifiable yet, there’s a strong feeling that many registered Republican women may be crossing party lines on their ballots.
• The Harris/Walz campaign has been doing a lot of get-out-the-vote work; the Trump/Vance campaign has all but abandoned this.
• More older voters have died off (helped by Covid and the right-wing resistance to science and disease prevention efforts); more younger people have aged into voting. And while no constituency is a monolith, younger voters tend to skew more liberal.
• Every time Trump says something, he alienates more people, and gives those on the fence more reasons not to vote for him. The rest of his campaign seems to be running with this approach.

Pulling this out of bullet points, because it’s likely to take more than one paragraph….

A lot of the very understandable concern over Trump winning again is the very real historical precedent. Speaking broadly, America has made its entrenched, systemic sexism and racism very obvious over the past decade. Trump won against Clinton in 2016; though he lost in 2020, that was against Biden, an older white man; now he’s again running against a woman, and a Black/South Asian woman at that. For many, it seems like a stretch to think that Harris can overcome the sexism and racism that has been all too obvious in the media’s rush to qualify and question her every statement, while constantly allowing Trump to fail upward at every opportunity.

I think there’s one major reason why things could change this time: This is our third time dealing with Trump as a candidate. He’s a known quantity at this point, and for most people, that’s not in his favor.

In 2016, many people (including me) didn’t think he’d actually win. However ridiculous and obviously sexist the attacks against Clinton were, I didn’t think that would sway enough of the electorate to put him into office. He was too out there, too obnoxious, too obviously racist, sexist, xenophobic, and in all other ways horrible. But while he lost the popular election (by 2,868,686 votes), the boost from the electoral college was enough to prove me (and many other people) wrong. We then got four years of things getting worse, capped off by a botched response to a global pandemic, leaving us entering the next major election cycle as bodies stacked up in refrigeration trucks because morgues were overwhelmed.

In 2020, running against another older white man, he once again lost the popular election (by 7,059,526 votes, over four million more than in 2016), by enough to lose the electoral college as well — and we all saw how well he handled that. Complaints, lies, conspiracy theories, and eventually a violent coup attempt as he egged on his followers, and he’s never stopped claiming that he was the victim.

Now it’s 2024. We know how bad he would be — he got started in 2016, spent four years doing as much as he could get away with, up to and including encouraging insurrection, and has spent the following four years spiraling ever downwards, making his dreams of heading a fascist dictatorship painfully clear. More and more high-profile Republicans have stepped forward to actively say that it’s time to put country over party and keep Trump from regaining office. Women have seen what he was able to do in stacking the courts and destroying the right to manage their own reproductive health. Minorities have seen the never-ending stream of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and all the other -isms, -phobias, and hatred. We all know that it’s not an act, that he’s not “just saying things” that he doesn’t intend to follow through on. And I think that this will matter.

I also think that, even with America’s systemic sexism and racism, Harris is the right candidate at the right time to finally be the first woman to hold the office of President. I’ve said before that at the time, I didn’t think Biden needed to step down, and that — due in large part to that sexism and racism — it might have been a mistake. In the weeks following that decision, as I’ve watched Harris campaign, I’ve changed my mind. I think — hope, strongly hope — that people, especially people who aren’t old, cis, white, men, who were disillusioned and unexcited about voting in another contest between two old white men, have been and will be turning out to vote for Harris.

I’m sure there are more reasons that I could bring up. And none of this has been easy. But now that we’re down to the wire?

I have hope.

I’ve voted (for Harris/Walz, obviously). If you haven’t yet, I hope you do, and I hope you vote for Harris/Walz.

We can be better. We won’t go back, we can move forward. And when we fight, we win.

(Please…we’ve got to win.)