I was up until the wee hours of the morning today. Steve Kornacki had my full attention. I heard the word bellwether way too many times to count. I fired away tweets, threads, posts everywhere I had a voice. I went to bed a happy woman.
In the years since 2016, this is the feeling I have been chasing. The notion that if enough of us cared enough about our neighbors, the world we live in, our children and the world we plan to leave behind for them to steward, change is possible.
Watching deep red Texas turn blue was a sight for parched eyes. I messaged friends, responded to comments and engaged with the world all morning. Then, on a walk with Felix this afternoon, I realized this ballooning hope in me felt different. Did I expect the world around me to change right away? Not really. But hope is this pernicious thing. It makes me want to believe that the collective will of the people that delivered a trifecta here in Pennsylvania will make progress toward a decent living wage and a better public transit system, and codify reproductive rights into the state constitution.
But I know better. In 2016, my Facebook header was a row of black silhouettes, all men, and one blue woman at the end: Hillary. I was heartbroken the next day. In 2024, everything I heard around me seemed to indicate a Kamala win and I was heartbroken again, this time in India watching it unfold from a distance. So this hope thing, while it balloons, also finds itself fettered with a stone at the base, making sure it knows its place. It can hover, make me feel good awhile, but needs to settle for something real, tangible and visible.
Will the trifecta deliver? Maybe not in the form I expect it to. What I think will happen are incremental steps toward the future I want for my kids. Who knows, maybe in 2028 we will have a blue Florida as well.
A girl can hope.
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