Al B Einstein on Trump's Downfall
Here I am crying again.
It apparently happens to people more and more as they get older. They get more emotional. Is that true? I don’t know. But it’s true for me.
When I was a kid, like everyone else, I watched TV, read books and comics, and went to the movies. And in all of those spaces, my mind was slowly trained to believe that the US is good. Not perfect. Not without some really disgusting history, but striving to be something good. While the whole world divides into ethnicities and races, we keep trying to live together. While the world flirts with dictators and fascists, the US defeats them and expands freedom more and more, year by year. And when things are dark, and scary - hope, or a hero, will show up and guide us through it. For the world, that is often the beacon of light atop Lady Liberty or food and supplies stamped Made in the USA, or a tank with the Stars and Stripes coming to liberate them from tyranny. It’s not the whole story of the US, to be sure. It is the story that I, as a boy and still as a man, want the US to be.
I often steel myself for disappointment though. I’ve done that many times with respect to my country. But I always hope we will do the right thing.
I was ready for disappointment in 2020.
And on November 3rd, I sat and watched TV, avoiding the returns, and saying to my wife “don’t look,” Florida will only disappoint you. That turned out to be true. Not just because Florida was won by Trump but because I have family there and looked on Facebook to see them saying all of the things that are the opposite of my hopes for this country. They didn’t see Kamala Harris as the child of an immigrant and divorced parents who persevered and became a lawyer, attorney general, and ultimately, the Vice President of the United States. They didn’t see that she achieved all of that as a woman, an African American, and a Southeast Asian woman to boot. Before her, none of any of those three categories had been attorney general in California since California became a state in 1950. Actually, there have only been 13 state’s attorney’s general in all of US history and in all 50 states combined who are identified as being a minority. That’s 50 states and however many attorney’s general each state has had and only 13 have been minorities and only 50 have been women. Now wait, she’s both a minority and a woman. How many of those are there? Two. Her and Letitia James. That's a rags to riches fairy tale. That's the classic underdog story with a glorious ending! But my family in Florida doesn’t see that. They don’t see that this is all that I hope for in the US. That anyone can follow their passions and become whatever it is they want to become - regardless of all the categories society may foist upon them. It’s, in my mind, the American Dream on display in real life. But my cousin in Florida described her as Evil Kamala. Evil. Evil?!
As the returns came back over the next few days and votes from mail in ballots accumulated, all delays predicted due to COVID19, some hope started to creep in. Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada started to look like they would reject the hatred of Donald Trump and his followers. I started to become hopeful. After weeks of gloomy grey days in NY and awkward classrooms of social distancing and mask wearing and online teaching, I was on my balcony in Yonkers, hoping. It was sunny and bright and warm. I was on the phone with my step brother in law (is that a thing?) and we were becoming hopeful but still wondering how so many people could still support this man after all he’d done. My wife called me in and she said “They called it!” and I thought, Arizona? Pennsylvania? No, she said, Joe Biden is the President elect!
I literally danced for the rest of the day along with millions of others. I danced to the car to go pick up my daughter from the SATs. I blasted Madonna’s Holiday and Kool and the Gang’s Celebration from my car. I held my fist in the air out of the car window. I danced across my driveway when I got home. I danced in the house. I went to lunch with friends in nearby Katonah and danced on the sidewalk with my phone playing music. People honked and cheered. We drove to Connecticut and I danced into my friends’ house, played the viola and danced with their daughter. I had a few drinks in celebration and we all sat down to watch the victory speeches and yes, Kamala’s made me cry. They filmed the little girls in the audience and the tears in their eyes as they saw someone just like them succeed. They filmed the tears in the eyes of women who had been told no so many times, who had been harassed, belittled, objectified, rejected, or assaulted - and they were crying too. They had survived to see the day when their voice was the loudest in the room and called for hope and change.
This morning, the day after those celebrations, I saw a clip sent to me by a friend. It was the SNL Weekly Update. And there is Colin Jost and Michael Che. A white guy and a black guy - of course. Of course because that is where we keep hoping to be. We keep hoping to be in the show the Good Place. Where all stereotypes are flipped around and tossed in a blender and people are just people - with hopes and dreams, strengths and weaknesses. And we’re all a little strange. And we’re all afraid and hopeful. And we’re all alone but hoping, in this short life, to connect with some others along the way. And the doors for who you could connect with used to be small. They were limited. But the US kept saying “what if…” and pushing forward. We kept writing stories and making films and marching in the streets to imagine a world where just about anything is possible. And the SNL skit turned to celebrations in the street. In NYC, in Philadelphia, and then… around the world.
That’s what brought the tears back. That’s what brought the joy back. The world celebrates with us in the repudiation of going backwards. We don’t want to be what you thought was “great” again. We don’t want to go back to more fear and more division. You see, all of those imaginary visions I held about what America could be and should be - I was not alone. There are millions of us. And we’re all over the world. And we’re meek, and gentle, and broken, and strange, and beautiful, and smart, and complex, and different from each other. But sometimes, we’re all standing up at the same time and pushing forward together. Taking dreams from inside the stories in our heads and acting together to push them into reality. That is well worth a few more joyful tears this morning.
It is good to be your friend. I appreciate you and your words very much. -Ronit
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