Someday when they ask, I’ll tell my children that we cried ourselves to sleep tonight, afraid of what this would mean. I’ll try and fail to explain the strange limbo that entangled the night, as I was too afraid to refresh the polls and too shocked to fall asleep. I’ll tell them how the stock market instantly fell apart. I will tell them I’m sorry.
But I will also tell them how women flocked to the grave of Susan B. Anthony to leave their voter stickers, shouting that this was for her. That mine was the generation that put a woman on the ballot. And I’ll hold my head high when I tell them that I voted for the first female presidential nominee from a major party.
Because despite everything about her, I believed that our country deserved better than the alternative. That I thought sexual assault survivors deserved to know that what happened to them matters, and is not something to be taken lightly. That I thought my LGBT friends deserved to know that their love is love-no better or worse than any other. That I thought the United States of America should continue to stand as a place where people of all creeds and races and stories felt safe. Correction: that I think.
Tonight we saw the power of fear and frustration swell as it has so many times before in history. Tomorrow we will see what becomes of it. But no matter what, we can’t forget that this is our home, and we have an obligation to mold it to our vision. It’s been shown that if only people of our generation voted, Hilary Clinton would have won by an overwhelming majority. Do you feel the power in that, the desire?
The fact that she did not is no excuse to give up on all of the ideals that drove us to check the box next to her name in the first place. This is not a sign to stop fighting for what we believe in. President Obama once told us that “we are the change we seek”. More than anything he taught us that we must take responsibility for what we want- that we have to chase it.
Giving up will only create another victory for the rhetoric of hatred. Call me naive, but I think we’re stronger than that. The fact of the matter is that our country has spoken, and this is its choice. Our hearts are breaking not because of the success of the man, but because of the success of the message. We wanted to believe that our home would draw together, rather than tear each other apart. We thought that a fire fueled by hate would never burn this long. Let us despair for a moment, and then let’s get to work.
In the coming hours, people will question how this happened. In the years that follow, historians will tell the story of the night Donald Trump was elected to office; judgement will be made. But right now, I just have one question: what are we going to do about it?