See, I told you 2020 would be a great year! They counted and they counted and they counted. In PA they reached the end of Pi, and still they counted; as well they should have because this election was about the largest ever American voting block across every race, gender, and creed coming together to set the country’s course back towards its hopeful future as a nation made great once, and now again, by diversity. They counted and they counted, and at long last, they reached 46. CNN called it. NYT called it. AP called it. NBC unplugged the Kornacki. And it was over.
Not that it was easy. We got too authoritarian-curious for comfort. Joe Biden’s Secret Service name should be Phew. But in the end, out goes the birtherism president, and in comes Joe Biden and the first Black woman Vice President. That’s a hell of a turn around.
Four years ago at this moment, in an edition titled, He Alone, I wrote: I’m the progressive son of Holocaust-surviving, immigrant parents, and the father of a couple of brown kids, and this is without any doubt the hardest sentence I’ve ever had to type: Donald John Trump will be the 45th president of the United States. For four years, I’ve listened to my mom ask why there’s still so much hate in the country. For four years, I’ve listened to my dad, who as a teen, escaped on his hands and knees through the snow and mud to the Polish forest, where he fought the Nazis, ask me: “Why aren’t the people out in the streets?” Well, dad, they are finally out in the streets today: cheering, dancing, and celebrating the end to a four year detour from decency and decorum, a u-turn from Donald Trump’s “I Alone” to Joe Biden’s “We together.”
And when I say we, I mean it in the most literal sense. Trump is terrible. His enablers far worse. They should be held to account. But when it comes to the broader population, the citizens who exist beyond the images carried on the news and or in the diatribes shouted back and forth on social media, this is one America — and if this pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that we need unity to thrive. Consider that your perception of the other side could be as distorted as theirs is of you, and look for common ground. Only then will we be able to flatten this four year curve of lies and rage into in a speedbump on the road to a better America. We owe it to my parents. We owe it my kids. We owe it to John Lewis and RBG. We owe it the 230,000 taken by Covid and the millions on the front lines fighting it. And we owe it to ourselves.
Later, when Biden addresses the nation, he will describe the same One America I have, neither red nor blue. No network will have to cut away during his speech, your kids will not have to leave the room, and there won’t be a divisive word or a single lie. Hallelujah. Let boredom ring. Let boredom ring.
From NextDraft, The Day Biden and Harris Won. Sign up here.
