Oh, I can’t tell you how exciting it was, you just had to be there. Being just 21 years old and voting for the first African American President. Every Democrat and leftist I knew adored the very concept of Obama becoming our next President. The polls, the excitement, the momentum, everything; was showing a landslide.
People who never took part in politics were flooding events, and hosting watch parties. Every Republican mocked me with their faulty absolute certainty that he was going to lose a winnable race, SNL was on fire, Craig was Bond, Beer was Cheap, climate change seemed possible, and everyone just knew this was the start of a better future for our democracy.
Then he won and it seemed like a switch was flipped and all these first timers were going around saying “Hey it’s been a month where the hell is the change?!”
Even I got caught up in the process, “This is B$llS&@T! We voted for another Kennedy and we elected another Eisenhower!” Oh I thought I was a hotshot with that line {Eye Roll}
My 86 year old Granddad having just finished his post-retirement gig as an AARP lobbyist just smiled-
“Kid I’ve been in politics since 1952, we’re gonna be alright!”
It’s a very strange thing how calm I’ve been since September. Especially when Everyone I know seems to be acting out one of the stages of grief!
This time in 2016 I was panicking!
Everything was saying She was going to WIN and yet I saw zero enthusiasm or engagement from people. I kept having this nagging feeling that something wasn’t right. WE’RE UP FIVE IN TEXAS! Then why does every leftist I know hate her? WE’RE MAKING INROADS IN THE WEST!!! Then why are all of these third parties polling oddly well?
(Look I don’t wanna seem like one of those guys that was privately shocked by the revelation that Bruce Willis was dead the whole time in The Sixth Sense and then goes around saying he saw it coming. I genuinely believed she was going to win. But, something felt off.
I went to see my granddad, he was 95 and dying. He loved to talk with me about politics and he told me again as he slowly ate his last meal (a waffle) that “Everything was going to be okay, we were going to be okay.”
It was obvious that he was slipping and so I told him I was running for Congress. I’ve always known I would and I knew when I did he wouldn’t be there to help. He perked up for a second and said in a soft voice
“They’re going to give you a lot of shit kid! Just be yourself, be honest, be courageous, and you’ll be okay!”
He gazed at me, a piercing gaze that came with some final touch of warmth and relief.
He then went to sleep, I kissed his forehead, and he died the next day.
I have spent the last nine years trying to master the eternal hope that my grandad possessed, thinking about our last conversation. Coming from a democratic family, it seems like a state of constant fear is our default mode.
But, something happened this time, something different. This election truly feels like its between one toxic candidate and a budding movement of people. People who are expecting more from our politics, people who are going party shopping, and a feeling that most people are starting to identify common ground on a number of issues.
Again I can’t tell you how many times I heard people say in 2008 — We just need to get him in there!
This time around I just keep hearing “we’re not going back” or “it doesn’t end in November”, or “the cavalry isn’t coming, you are it”
I just see only hope, a hope bigger than a party or a candidate.
I see a real earnest determination to keep working, to keep speaking out.
People who I argued politics with for a generation, who are registered independents and Republicans; have beaten me to the polls this year to vote for her.
They are the ones sending me Project 2025 memes, they are the ones out front and center calling out the MAGA supporters we know as “cultists.”
It just seems like something more meaningful and interesting than a simple election cycle is taking place. For the past month we’ve had a Democratic Nominee who really isn’t even speaking to me, she’s speaking to them.
I’ve never seen so many people awakened and aroused towards action in my life.
I keep hearing calls for continued action and activism regardless of who wins. I don’t know if I’ve finally learned the art of calm or have gained some kind of healthy balance in my politics, or if the current Democratic party has become so in need of reform that I’ve lost my sense of tribalism.
Maybe it’s all of those things?
But these engaged and energized first time Democratic voters and old hat Dems call me all the time, I’ll pause whatever documentary, or bond movie I’m watching (Guys Dalton is very underrated please give him a chance), or I’ll stop playing Age of Empires with my son and try my best to calm which ever worried friend or family member is on the phone-
“Relax! Nothing is going to be settled anymore. We are going to be okay. Even if we don’t win this cycle we aren’t going back, we aren’t going away.”
I get it now grandpa…
It’s 2024, we don’t need a superhero to save our nation. We don’t need to water down our politics or bite our tongues!
We need to be ourselves, as courageous as we can, as brave and honest as we can become, and we collectively need to be the next great generation of Happy Warriors!
Love to know what you guys think and if you feel the same way; or if you think I’m crazy.
The Florida Squeeze 
Excellent article. Very well written.
I get how younger people that today is like 2008.
But, there are two big differences. We were in Iraq and Obama was talking about winding down Iraq and doubling down in Afghanistan. This really resonated for me, but a lot of supporters, who just considered him the peace candidate, tended to ignore the Afghanistan part of the plan. They denounced him when he carried it out as misleading at best (it was in his platform). Also, after 8 years of everything getting worse (the economic meltdown, abandoning the central front in the war on terror, creating a disaster in Iraq) it was a powerful relief to have a chance for a reset. The younger generation, who see politics though a race/gender lens, tends to see Harris as a female Obama.
She is not; and that is the second big difference. She is a party functionary who lacks the grand vision, strategic team building experience and soaring rhetoric of Obama. I was just happy to be able to vote for someone who inspired me; Gore and Kerry did not. This year, like 2016, I voted more against than for a candidate (as I did in 2000 and 2004). Even H. Clinton was far more qualified than Harris. Both campaigns were very well- financed and driven by identity. I suspect we will lose, because we have let identity politics take over the party.
Trump, crazy as he is, continues to get more support each time he runs from minorities who are sick of political dysfunction and a lack of vision or concrete plans for the working class. The NYTimes podcast covered this is an article about a Wisconsin factory worker. I have a biracial friend who is voting for Trump because she thinks he gets things done and believes Biden’s immigration policies are a failure (and she’s an immigrant from Canada!).
If Trump wins, he may alter the rule of law in the U.S. as it has been known since President Andrew Jackson. Also, depending on what he can get away with he may implement Hawley Smoot-like tariffs, which will plunge the US, and likely much of the world, into a painful recession.
Both will change our country for the worse. But, to an extent the left deserves it. We built a cult of personality around Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which gave Trump the power to reconstruct the Supreme court.
But, in the long-term big-picture, I think your grandfather got it right. We’re going to be all right. When the pendulum swings too far one way, it tends to return. We need to be, as he counseled, brave and courageous. Politics based on fear from the left is a losing recipe. We need to be a party of hope and potential.
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