Post-Election Hangover

This is just to say

I voted by mail
for Biden-Harris
who actually
won in the end.

I know you're 
celebrating
and I wish
I could cheer too.

Forgive me,
I'm still not over
the damage
we have left to repair.

I envisioned being much happier, jubilant even. But it has not worked yet. No, not yet. Instead, I am restless and more than a little baffled at my willful contrarianism. My gratitude to all the poll workers, door-to-door canvassers, phone and text bank volunteers, in-person voters who waited in line for hours to cast a ballot, mail carriers who did double duty to insure that ballots reached their destinations – all of this in the middle of a raging pandemic – my gratitude is huge. And while there is no adequate means to express that at scale from where I sit, it is a gratitude I will carry for a long time to come.

I salute the President- and Vice-President-elect, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They were enough to bring the challenge across the finish line. They will represent a welcome change from what we have endured these hard four years.

And yet, I’m still not over the damage we have left to repair.

In conversation with a dear friend who kindly validated my ambivalence and sense of displacement, she mentioned the word “mourning.” And it clicked. Somehow, somewhere, a part of me is mourning. A part of me is very afraid of getting distracted, of taking our collective foot off the gas, of forgetting all the sacrifices people have made and that systems have made of people to arrive at this point. I refuse to be one who will forget.

Because already we – POC, Biden supporters, Dems – are being asked to forgive, which in the American fantasy also means forget. No. I will neither forgive nor forget the unfathomable level of corruption, crime, deceit, fundamental disrespect enacted by this administration. In a New York Times op-ed, Dr. Tressie McMillan-Cottom lays out exactly what a Biden presidency must prioritize in order to effectively govern:

Restoring baseline trust in social institutions’ survivability, and not necessarily their fairness, is critical to the integrity of governance. A President Biden should pursue all available avenues of punishment. Only a transparent accounting of what exactly happened during the last four years would allow us to pivot to radical responsiveness.

Dr. Tressie McMillan-Cottom, “The Danger In White Moderates Setting Biden’s Agenda”

“[A]ll available avenues of punishment” stands out for me here. Who wants to talk about punishment when we’re finally able to dance in the streets? Maybe no one wants to, but we have to. To speak of Punishment feels harsh in this feel good moment and yet, it must be a deliberate part of the plan going forward. And this is not about vengeance. It is about justice; about restoring the integrity of the rule of law.

I find this thread on forgiveness and repentance very helpful:

You always CAN forgive if it’s a helpful part of your healing process!!

But as y’all can see, I have lots to say about the notion that one “should” forgive. Particularly when the harm was significant and/or the perpetrator has not done the real work of repentance. https://t.co/T1L59RQNtJ

— Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@TheRaDR) November 8, 2020

Surprising to me but true: the posts I wrote following the election in 2016 still burn. In some ways, all that fear, anger, and dismay accumulated over these four years were not suddenly washed away with a media broadcast. Corona will continue to claim lives at an alarming rate while universal health care remains a distant dream. Corporate interests will continue to rule the roost ahead of programs to benefit the greater good, I’m afraid.

In January 2017, I wrote this:

“People will bow to authority before they recall

their humanity and

acknowledge yours.

Each of us has power and often we hand it over

because we trust,

we have faith,

we believe

that others mean us no harm.

What we forget is how poorly

we understand harm when it is not us

but our neighbor,

our colleague,

the guy across the street, city, county, country

whose livelihood, dignity, existence

is at stake.”

I cannot shake my reservations about the change we envision versus the change we will get.

That said, as my friend reminded me: It’s what all the people did – by voting, by canvassing, by supporting one another – to make a Biden-Harris win a reality. That’s exciting, that’s empowering, that’s what we need to celebrate! And of course, she is right.

I’ll come around in time. You may not get a “Ding-Dong The Witch Is Dead” vibe from me anytime soon, but know that I am glad that the outcome is this and not a different one; that there’s dancing in the streets rather than violence. I want to believe that we’ll get better, be better at taking care of each other and the planet. I do. I’m trying hard not to be a resentful curmudgeon. My inspiration may have to arrive from a different source. I long to feel your release and revival.

In the meantime, it helps to see Kamala at work: