boy bye.
With the presidential election finally called, thoughts on community, progress and finding your people.
Where were you and what were you doing the moment you learned that Joe Biden was elected president over Donald Trump?
For me, I was washing dishes and listening to the end of All In: The Fight for Democracy, the Amazon Prime Video documentary featuring Stacey Abrams and the battle against voter suppression. Between loads, I glanced at my phone and saw that my partner Stefin was calling.
Stefin was working on Saturday, and normally he’d only call during work in the case of emergency, so I was concerned.
Me, nervously: “Hey! What’s up?”
Him, jubilantly: “Is it true?”
Me, confused: “Is what true?”
Him: “I think Biden just won.”
I raced to Twitter and saw the Associated Press call, and I screamed, startling the cats. Within the hour, I had thrown together a Spotify playlist, charged my wireless speaker, massacred a Glossier box to make a handwritten “Bye Don” sign, threw on a hat and speed-walked to the Peg Bond Center after I put out a call on Facebook for anyone in town who might be interested to meet to dance and celebrate the occasion, just like people all around the country were already beginning to do.
Five minutes after arriving, I was still alone and swaying tentatively to KC and the Sunshine Band. Not exactly a Castro vibe. One woman passed me and asked, “Are you celebrating?” and asked no further questions beyond my “yes.” Then, a man in a red MAGA hat approached the center’s pavilion about 20 feet from where I was standing.
It was in this moment, I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake. Not just to run out into the streets of my somewhat-sleepy little town in search of like-minded progressiveness in this historic moment, but to leave the city and move to the exurbs in the first place. Why did we leave Andersonville when this could have been us?
And then, Maura arrived. Our district’s Democratic state rep-elect, a devoted gun control advocate and a former teacher, she said she was passing by, had seen the MAGA man arrive and wanted to make sure I was OK. Then came Juliana, the incredibly kind co-owner of Bocaditos Cafe — which serves up some seriously mean empanadas and other Argentine dishes — came along to say hello and offer food. Abby, my alderman(!), stopped by with her family. Brea, James, Annie, John and Rachel all followed as well, and though we technically fell short of a dance party, we did succeed in counter-programming the MAGA man and about a dozen other folks’ (at least one more of them also in a Trump hat) praying of the rosary by basking in the sunshine to our anthems of the moment — Diana’s “I’m Coming Out,” Beyoncé’s “Sorry,” Mariah’s “Fantasy.”
The whole moment felt intense and surreal, and honestly I’m still unpacking it. But the more time I spend living in a small town after many years in larger cities, the more regular are the reminders that, odds are, no matter where you are, your people are still out there. They’re harder to find in some places than others — I’m not sure what I’d do in Roberts County, Texas, where Trump pulled in 93 percent of the vote last Tuesday, for example — but they’re out there. And while we don’t all live in places where we were necessarily able to run out into the street and scream in relief with a mass of people on Saturday, it’s so important to have that someone or someones to scream/dance/cry with.
If you’re out there in Roberts County or wherever else, I hope you are finding that someone right now.
The next few weeks and months will be a time of potentially precarious transition for our nation. I still don’t feel great about the threat of militia and QAnon conspiracy theorists like the one just elected to Congress in Georgia. And Biden and Kamala Harris will need to be held accountable for the electorate that landed them in this position, even at a time when they will also face tremendous opposition to their efforts to undo the harm that has been done to this nation’s reputation and trajectory. (Just look at the record-breaking spread of COVID-19 in Kane County and much of the Midwest and nation right now for a glaring example of that.)
But for now, this is a time to celebrate a historic repudiation of an administration that’s repeatedly proven itself to be completely lacking in empathy, dignity and (see: Four Seasons Total Landscaping) basic competency.
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Read: If you’re hot for MSNBC analyst Steve Kornacki or CNN’s John King, you’re not alone. The memes for both of these two were toasty this past week while much of the nation was unable to do much else but endlessly wonder aloud what’s taking the Nevada vote counters so damn long. Vox has deemed Kornacki “America’s election night crush” and apparently the thirsty masses keep bugging Joy Ann Reid for his number.
Give: As you’ve probably already heard, control of the U.S. Senate will likely come down to two runoff races in the state of Georgia this January. If you want to help change Mitch McConnell’s job title to Senate Minority Leader, the organization They See Blue Georgia has compiled this Google sheet of BIPOC-led voter outreach groups in the state that could use our support.
Watch: And now, a controversial take. The remake of Roald Dahl’s The Witches is really entertaining and is worth the HBO Max subscription. Octavia Spencer is fantastic as always, Anne Hathaway leans into the evil glamour of the Grand High Witch and, while I still prefer the Anjelica Huston original, this one is worth seeing. Now, the new The Craft sequel, on the other hand...
Listen: Kylie Minogue just released a new album continuing the year of disco lite with an apt title: DISCO. A confession: I’ve never been fully on the Kylie train (at least not so much since Body Language was released), but this album is fantastic. Between the unusually warm weather we’re currently enjoying in the Midwest and the Biden win, this is the perfect soundtrack for this celebratory moment.