reader. writer.

If you are walking through this world with your eyes and heart open, you now know that the worst possible outcome occurred: the Republican candidate for U.S. President won, and Republicans now have a majority of the Senate (we likely won’t know the House for weeks).

The U.S. has never lived up to anyone’s ideals for everyone; some live well, some get by, some suffer, and some die of preventable deaths. The last three categories will increase, possibly exponentially, under Republican leadership. (I used to refer to them as extremist Republicans because I knew some who identify as Republican are not intentionally cruel, but the party has been subsumed by those who are, and there is no longer a need to differentiate—this is who the Republican Party has become, and, as some have rightly pointed out, this is who many Americans have been both now and throughout our history.) I wish I could count on the harm being limited within our borders, but just as historically U.S. citizens have wrought great harm on vulnerable people inside our borders, historically this country has a way of inflicting itself on the world in mostly unhelpful ways.

The horror of that is a lot to absorb. With it comes the searing loss of two wonderful candidates, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, exceptional in so many ways, uniquely capable of building on past progressive successes and eager to open up greater possibilities for all of us. It would have been a source of joy for me every time they appeared in public in the roles of President and Vice President. It is impossible to state how much I did not want the Republican candidate to win—I lived under a cloud of horror, shame, and fear during his first four years, and as hard as it was to imagine, it was clear that a second term would be worse. But as much as I didn’t want him, that is just how much I wanted to see Harris and Walz succeed.

So it’s a double loss, a wrenching loss, even harder because a future that was already very much at risk due to climate crises (and empathy crises) is now even more dark and foreboding. I want to take a moment now to mention that I am someone who leans heavily on optimism as a source of energy to meet challenges, and I know I don’t sound that way right now. I cannot say that what I feel is hope. But after reeling the past few days from grief and horror (and stress-induced nausea and gastric upset), for the moment, I have a sense of acceptance. The truth is, when we elected Biden in 2020, I hoped that would be the end of this hate-fueled version of the Republican Party. Instead, they and the very broken human being that they enabled to take power stayed in the spotlight, and his unhinged behavior and rants continued to be treated as worthy of our attention. The threat was not eliminated, just postponed. So now we are here, at what could be the end of all things.

Some—maybe all—of the challenges we now face are not new, but the result of this election has turned up the dial. When I think of the climate crisis for example, it has been as if we were all in a car that was headed towards a cliff, and instead of turning the wheel, the Republicans will press the gas so we hurtle off the cliff more quickly. It may be that we could never have avoided the dark outcomes that lie ahead, but it is hard not to feel despair in the face of this accelerated journey towards darkness.

While despair may be well supported by logic and evidence right now, it doesn’t strike me as actionable. Shall I lie down and cry until the world explodes around me? Shut down emotionally and act as if I don’t care about human suffering? Stay silent in the face of acts of injustice? Ignore violent, misleading, or hateful rhetoric?

No, I don’t think I will. Okay, I may have to take a break now and then, I may have to pick my battles, and of course, there’s no telling how long I will be among the living (yes, my mind has offered me visions of a future that dark, in which the violence unleashed by the Republicans takes the lives of everyone I know and love). Still, my answer is no. I will not despair. I will not give up. I accept that the future is far darker than it was two days ago. But I will not nod and agree that there is nothing I can do, no reason to get up each day. I will not abandon hope. I will not abandon joy and laughter. And I hope you won’t, either, even if by doing so, we must fly in the face of the facts to embrace the clearly preposterous supposition that life is worth living and what we do matters.