An election week reflection
The one where we grieve what could have been
NOTE: If you are not ready to read anything related to the election, please feel free to skip this newsletter. I understand completely.
Hi friends, this is an impossible note to begin, and I guess I’ll admit by simply stating that I am at a loss for words. In 2016, I felt shock and frustration that a qualified woman could win the popular vote and lose the electoral college to a fully incompetent man. In 2024, I am filled with rage - so deep it cuts right through to my core - that an overly qualified woman of color could run a campaign founded on joy, hope, optimism, opportunity, and actual policy solutions and lose to a 34-time convicted felon who tanked the economy in four years, admitted on national television he only has “concepts of a [healthcare] plan,” is accused of sexual assault by 27 different women, stacked the Supreme Court with extremists who have already reversed fundamental rights from millions of Americans, hosted a rally that was likened to the 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden, and incited a violent insurrection. For the rest of my life, I will never forgive the people who voted for that man. If that sounds harsh, it is not: it is impermissible to tell someone you love them and then vote for a candidate who demonizes them and promises to revoke their rights.
I oscillate between feeling extreme rage and deep sadness. I refuse to make peace that millions of voters decided that a “greater” America is one where women are not trusted to make their own decisions about their bodies and are dying in parking lots from miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies; where the maternal mortality rate is higher than almost all other developed nations, and it’s significantly worse for Black women because of systemic racism in our healthcare system; where children and teachers are dying in school shootings and the best we can offer are thoughts and prayers; where members of the LGBTQIA community are victims of hate crimes and cannot access gender-affirming care; where quality healthcare and education is only something for the wealthiest and most privileged; and where corporations are treated with more respect and care than human beings. When all of these things are true, and when every nonpartisan economic policy expert states adamantly that his policies will increase costs for Americans and potentially lead to a recession as early as next summer, it feels obvious that voting for him “for economic reasons” is simply a mask for misogyny and racism. That deserves to be stated plainly.
I’m not sharing all of this because I need to vent or blow off steam - I have friends for that and we’re doing plenty of it. This is a book newsletter, and books are a portal to understanding and to empathy. I grew up in a small town in Delaware with not a lot of diversity. Books have been mission critical to exposing me to new worldviews and cultures - such as The Stationary Shop by Marjan Kamali or A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum. They have helped me understand the root causes of injustices - I think of Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee, Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. Books have helped direct my energy towards fights for progress - particularly Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly and The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres - and they have helped me understand topics that don’t make a lot of sense to me, like Mission Economy by Mariana Mazzucato. And sometimes most importantly, books have given me reason to hope. They have been the light in moments of darkness, and this week, I’ve been turning to The Impossible Will Take A Little While edited by Paul Rogat Loeb and All We Can Save by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson for that source of light. That books, learning, and education are under attack and threat in so many states across this country - because authoritarian leaders fear citizens with critical thinking skills - tells me that reading is now a deeply political act and a way for us to fight back against hate and division.
This newsletter has featured and will continue to feature books that are written by women and people of color and stories that reveal injustices, offer social commentary, or lift up historically disenfranchised or marginalized voices. That will only become more pronounced now. In the coming weeks (sooner if I can manage), I plan to share a non-exhaustive collection of the books that have served as my teachers, mentors, and sources of light in the hardest and darkest of times. My hope is that these can serve as resources for you and your loved ones because the fight is far from over, and it requires all of us to show up, fully educated and inquisitive.
My grandmother raised me to care about my neighbors and my community, and that so many people could emphatically show up in this election in ways that will destroy families and communities is too cruel and too devastating to fully process. But we must process. Not today or right this second. Today, I am crying. Today, I am angry. But there is too much at stake, for too many people, that sitting on the sidelines is simply not an option. We must show up and look out for one another.
Onward, upward. Together.