On Saturday, at 11:30 AM, I heard the distinctive clang of metal pots begin their wild pulse which echoed down 1st Avenue and across the city. Honks sounded from the sea of cars that drove by, crying out, in their own individual rhythms, to those around them to join in. A man pulled his van over to a parking space, got out of it, and began to dance, holding his phone to the sky, wandering into the street to receive honks and waves of solidarity. A woman, taking note of the melodious cacophony, glanced at her phone before kneeling next to her young child, snugly strapped into a stroller, to speak to her. This all happened in the span of a minute because networks said the magic words: Joe Biden is the winner of the 2020 election.
For many people who had been following the election returns,
the call itself wasn’t a surprise. After all, the coverage of the massive
counting endeavor had, for a few days now, turned into a prolonged dance by
reporters and analysts around the inevitable conclusion that Biden had won. And
yet, whether you had been following this inexorable march since Tuesday or made
a point of avoiding anything but a winning call, the announcement had the
effect of making the moment real. No longer was the Trump presidency an
existential nightmare without an end in sight. Suddenly there was a countdown
clock at the end of which he would no longer be our president, and it didn’t
matter whether he wanted to stay or not.
Exactly four years ago I asked the question “Now what?” when
Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump. The only solution I could come up with
then was to feel our sorrow and rage and to recognize that each one of us has a
life with meaning. Today we stand here, having routed America’s most egocentric
president, who could not bother to be concerned about the deaths of hundreds of
thousands, who has sowed distrust and discord, and hearts are filled with joy.
For some that joy is because Joe Biden will be the next President of the United
States. For some it’s because Kamala Harris will be the next Vice President of
the United States. For others still it is that Donald Trump will no longer be President.
But the question remains: Now what? What do you do when you get what you
wanted, or at least some facsimile of it?
The most immediately important thing is to take the time to
celebrate. It is no exaggeration to say that over the past two days millions
have danced, sung, chanted, and partied in the streets. Jubilations, we can
hear a grateful nation’s cheers, indeed; this is a moment worth celebrating.
People have worked hard to oust Donald Trump from the White House. It is
acceptable drown out the pounding of your cynicism and your fear with the
harmonies of triumph and joy. And you don’t have to like Biden, Harris, or
their platform to take a moment for yourself to exhale, knowing that whatever
comes next it’ll at least be better than what we’ve had. At the very least,
harm has been mitigated, and that, too, is good. Whether you are the small sigh
type of person, the two-day joy-bender, or you sit somewhere in between,
celebrate. That joy, that relief, is what is going to sustain you going
forward.
Yet we cannot only celebrate. If our actions stop there,
victory means nothing. There is still so much work to do. With the election of Joe
Biden and Kamala Harris, there will be a great desire for many of us to lay
down our arms and claim that our fight is finished. Do not listen to the siren
song of complacency. That is the song that allows places like Flint to be ignored
despite its water crisis. It is the melody that allows Trayvon Martin, Breonna
Taylor, George Floyd, and countless others to be killed. If we simply give up
so that we can live comfortable lives, then we are saying we accept the reality
that the poor are incarcerated for being poor while the rich get off scot-free;
that the right to vote is not a right, but a never-ending struggle to be heard in
the face of wave upon wave of obstacles; that our society is both systemically
and overtly racist; that women are undervalued and mistreated; that LGBTQ folks
still fight daily for the things like the right to have a family; that so our speech and actions default to treating the disabled community as jokes
and less-than; and so much more.
There has perhaps never been such a broad group so energized,
numerous, and prepared to organize as there has been over the past four years. People
who never marched before marched. People who never protested before protested. Millions
of people who have never voted before voted. People sought out ways they could
help others through mutual aid, rally planning, electoral organizing, donating,
and more. We cannot let that energy slip away. The fights will be many, but
when the stakes are so high, we must not look at our brothers, sisters,
siblings, and children and say that we aren’t willing to fight for them. Not
when we’ve never been more prepared than this moment.
So when I ask “Now what?” this time, the answer is clear. Let
the rage, sorrow, and loss of the last four years be transformed into hope and
determination to build a better future. Our jubilation from this weekend will be
the overture to a symphony we begin to write now. A symphony that, in its bright
tones, complicated harmonies, and fascinating rhythms, says that we vow to not
just be better than the last four years, but the last twenty, fifty, two-hundred
years. And while not all of us need to be the conductor or the first violin,
all of us have to take part. If all you’ve got is a metal pot to clang or the
hope and joy in your soul to dance, bring it, because we must not, cannot, and
will not stop until we make this world better.
