I Ordered You a Pancake
Some post-election thoughts and places to donate.
A few weeks ago, on an 85-degree day in October in North Carolina, it occurred to me that Donald Trump was going to win. I could not imagine, or perhaps would not imagine, things playing out any other way. This realization was not a prophecy foretold; it felt more like remembering the name of someone you’d embarrassingly forgotten. I had forgotten that Donald Trump was a man in America and that he could win an election, any election, with the right amount of élan. When his name wiggled back into my mouth, other words seemed irrelevant.
I suppose this realization came from three points. One was that it was an 85-degree day in October in North Carolina, and talking about the weather was not a point of anxiety over the melting polar ice caps anymore but rather a way to make pleasant table talk (many elections happen because of pleasant table talk). Every dangerously-warm fall day portended the promise of etiquette and happy conversation. It did not help that status quo as a replacement for etiquette is one of our most spectacular national pastimes. As the light got longer on the patio and the trees stayed green and everyone, on both sides of the political spectrum, seemed blurry with glee, I felt the first pangs of doubt.
Then there’s the other point. I write about fashion for a living and must silo my attention to trend. When a client asked, I predicted, in thrall to current taste, that the prairie dresses and unpasteurized milk and that itchy cottage industry we call Tradwifery were about to fade away. This also had to do with the weather. It is quite easy to sell chicken coops and grass-fed bovine colostrum during the summertime — when each day is sweeter and more hopeful than the last, with ample time to start a cooking routine or a garden or a family. But the long night of winter is crawling forward, with or without its bracing chill. It is much more difficult to shill romantic tableaus of westward expansion, down to the flowered calico, when the darkness invades. People, particularly young people, will still wax geriatric about antique domesticity — just pick an era (a common reflex when the young confront the specter of middle age and realize their parents had it better). But the puerility of this logic is no match for the wintertime blues. Young people will feel another common reflex, this time for a new season: dark, bulky clothing; processed food found at the bottom of the freezer; anything to keep the soul warm; no time for sweetness, no time for hope. I felt strongly that conservative aesthetics would not merely be subversive anymore but instead something much worse: unfashionable.
Then there is also the cacophonous slide-whistle that is the hegemonic voice. If Trump was to win, which I now was half-certain of, the self-styled bohemians who ironically, and then quickly unironically, aligned themselves with the Republicans, would now come to define mass conventionality. It was a short rinse away from 2016 when these bohemians voted for Bernie and jonesed for single-payer healthcare. What happens when the wallflowers are dancing on tables at the center of the fête? Another fate worse than death: being marked unfashionable. No matter how their politics transmogrify year after year, they are still ruled by a dominant rhetoric, one that chafes against hegemony and embraces contrarianism. There is nothing particularly polemical or radical about receiving increased social control. Trump winning would evirate the desire to be interesting, especially now that many liberals shared the same misgivings as conservatives did — whether that be with the weakened economy, the unilateralist policy regarding Israel-Palestine, or the continued emphasis on identity with little regard to class. This notion, that young conservatives will do whatever it takes to taste the bliss of consensus, and then soon tire of it on the palate, felt like the most chthonic part of this realization.
I was sixteen during the 2016 election but nevertheless campaigned hard for Bernie. In 2020, I went even harder. Post-Biden I was embittered, as many people were, and tired of participating in a political system I knew had no desire to aid its citizens and empower the working class. Harris was not the 100%-perfect candidate, for reasons too vast to list here, but the idea of Trump winning again felt so certain and so dejecting that I wanted someone, anyone, to swap for him. As of Wednesday morning, that wish went ungranted.
But in the words of James Baldwin, in a post that quickly blew up “...a despairing man does not write. It’s too easy — it’s too fashionable [...] The logic of despair isn’t for me.” I am inclined to agree. I felt despondent in 2016, and then again in 2020, and I refuse to let myself feel despondent now. I have spent the better half of the year doing that, for reasons that have nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with Biden-era politics, from Gaza to increased costs of living to the fact that I’ve been sick. I hate talking about my personal life, but I think this is important to state: since July, I’ve had phantom abdominal and pelvic pain, along with a missing period. I spent months writhing around in both physical and mental despair, attempting to excogitate what I would do if I were pregnant until a blood test confirmed otherwise. North Carolina has a 12-week abortion ban and I could not afford to raise a child right now, much less secretly travel across state lines to get the procedure done. In the days before my test results arrived, I sank into some imagined traumatology, unable to imagine any kind of future, unable to reckon with the yawning depth of my despair.
I am not telling you to not feel that despair — because I think you should. There is plenty to be divined in sinking. I am also not telling you to suckle at hope, especially in political fictions, which I believe color our national imagination so vividly that we feel a more acute despair when things go wrong. What I am telling you is that I can finally imagine a kind of future, one that does not find its power in indulgent melancholy or misplaced faith and instead finds it in collective action. There was a moment, however briefly, in 2020, when I thought this action would sustain itself (and I think it could’ve had Bernie been the Democratic nominee — but no matter). It seemed that everybody around me, regardless of age, was phone banking and canvassing and aiding one another when they could not afford groceries or a car payment or the price of optimism. If we want things to be better, that is the thing: we cannot just want. We have to act. We have to not give into despair and embitterment and instead turn all of those bedraggled feelings into action, which has been missing over the past four years but not, as many people think, unable to be accessed. In less eloquent words: I’m locking tf in.
If you want to do something right now instead of bedrotting, might I suggest donating to:
THE NATIONAL NETWORK OF ABORTION FUNDS
RAPE, ABUSE, AND INCEST NATIONAL NETWORK (RAINN)
PALESTINE CHILDREN’S RELIEF FUND
NATIONAL IMMIGRATION LAW CENTER
ARENA*
*A great org that works to recruit and train campaign staffers and help win elections (esp. local elections)
If you donate $5+ to any of these orgs, feel free to send me a screenshot and I’ll comp you a Mermaid Café subscription for however long it corresponds to (e.g. $5/one month, $10/two months, $15/three months, etc.) I posted about this on Wednesday but quickly deleted it because I didn’t want to seem too opportunistic, which was and is never my intention. I just want these great places to get the help they need and I want to honor your contribution, especially if you’re already paying for a newsletter subscription. I donate $5 to RAINN every month and plan on donating even more post-election, with a convicted rapist leading our government and a country of young men who are suddenly even more emboldened to comment on and control women’s bodies. I hope you join me in supporting these orgs.
I will also take a beat from my friend Priscilla here and say that if you would like to vent, need a distraction, or want to talk about something else, my DMs are always open, and I’m opening up comments for everybody below if you want to chat. ꩜
I am bad at closing arguments, but I am good at picking out songs:
I opened hoping for Tori and wasn’t disappointed. Perfect song for today.