“What!”
That’s all I could say, over and over again, when I finally turned my phone over the Wednesday morning after the election. I had wanted to spend some more time in the liminal space of not knowing who won because in that space, in the uncertainty of not knowing, there was still hope.
Now, not hope for a brighter future, or that even through this election we would see positive fundamental change. I had simply hoped we’d have a little more time. More time to organize. More time to break free from this tyranny of democracy that has people thinking a democratic vote is a revolutionary act. That ignoring genocides, plural, makes them go away. That their middle class comforts will cover over the fact that somewhere along the line they have lost their humanity. And some have even lost their minds.
If I am to hope, and at this point it is a choice, it is a hope built on the fact that we know what must be done. A hope that at this moment in time, when those of us on the right side of history are feeling all the emotions that arise when the fascism that people say will come, that people say is coming, has already been here, confusing people who expect it to only look like tiny mustaches and undesirable haircuts marching down the street instead of your neighbor that waves hello to you in the morning with a Trump sign in their yard.
The definition of hope, as a transitive verb, is to desire with expectation of obtainment or fulfillment. But Americans have been given such low expectations when it comes to what’s possible that in a country that has the ability to provide for the basic needs of its people, unnecessary suffering is seen as a virtue and not a problem to be solved.
If faith without works is dead, then hope without action is a wish when what we need is a hope that reinforces our resolve as we fight for a liberated world because while there is time, there is not much time.
We must not fool ourselves that this will be easy, but we must not be fooled into believing we have no power.
I have hope. But it’s not a rainbow and sunshine kind of hope. It’s a revolutionary and liberatory kind of hope. It’s truly the hope that sustains.
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