A Letter from Evan Wolfson Responding to the 2020 Election Results
My friends –
With hope that you are well and staying safe despite these surreal and difficult times, I write once again to share with you my thoughts after another important US election. The American people have spoken.
Congratulations, President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris! Mazel tov, America.
President-Elect Joe Biden, pictured with Freedom to Marry Founder Evan Wolfson, spoke as a special guest at the campaign's victory party in July 2015.
Defeating Trump was our necessary first step away from a descent into authoritarianism. The damage done is real, and threats remain, but we, the People, took action and pulled the United States back from the brink. Now, with a new president, we all must work to lift our country up toward its ideals; beat back the pandemic, oligarchy, and injustice; reinvigorate and strengthen our democracy and institutions; address our divisions; and move forward to a more perfect union and better future for all.
We have a lot to do and this is a time to go big and bold, with urgency, knowing that it will take time. More on that below, but first, let's celebrate this election.
I.
The American people have never supported Trump. Despite a majority against him in 2016, he eked out a win in the Electoral College only due to Russian interference and clumsy news reporting of an overhyped and ultimately illusory purported scandal about email. Trump is the only US president never to have hit 50% in the polls throughout his entire time in public life, and the first to lose the popular vote twice. Americans turned out in record numbers during a pandemic, overcoming voter suppression, to repudiate him now.
Democrats have now won the most votes in seven of the past eight presidential elections, something no party has been able to do since the formation of the modern party system in 1828. The vote against Trump in 2016 is even higher than the vote for Clinton over Trump in 2016. Across our country, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district all flipped to vote for Biden/Harris.
Trump is the first one-term loser in a generation, and Biden has become the first challenger to defeat an incumbent in 28 years. The affirmation that in a true democracy, the people can vote out an incumbent, is a message again heard around the world.
II.
Joe Biden selected, and the American people elected as our next Vice President, the first woman, the first African-American, the first Asian-American. Another message to young people everywhere: See yourself. Believe. Engage. Win.
III.
And as of today, even the Senate is still within reach, with the races in Alaska and North Carolina still undetermined, and — call to action! — two run-offs in newly purple Georgia. This means that on January 5 we all have a chance to decide which party will lead the Senate, helping the voters of Georgia choose for good governance rather than obstruction. A top priority now.
IV.
The fact that all of this didn't come through immediately and clearly is because of our cumbersome elections processes (and some partisan sabotage), and because of the flawed, non-majoritarian, and antiquated American electoral system (the archaic Electoral College, gerrymandering, and the increasingly non-representative Senate), which skews against the Democrats and distorts our politics. These and other structural problems will require our creative and sustained attention in the years ahead.
V.
We hoped for even more — that’s what patriots do — and we face real difficulties. To quote Ijeoma Olua, “This election doesn't change the work we need to do, it just determines how much harder that work may be." Before us now is the work of governing, of tackling big problems with boldness, of continued organizing, and, yes, of persuasion. Heavy lifting ahead, but, as Robert Reich put it, "I am nauseously optimistic." Despite our country’s challenges and our divisions at this time of pandemic, polarization, inequality, and disinformation, the 2020 election has delivered a repudiation of Trump and a mandate for leadership and for effective government. A new chapter — in a long story — begins.
VI.
Abraham Lincoln told us, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
This is not only an appeal to history and hope, to patriotism, it is also a reminder that we have to pierce — as we’d say today — silos and bubbles, passions, to re-center facts, sustain conversation, increase understanding, and reconnect with each other as Americans. For liberal democracy to survive, and for us to thrive, we must strive, where possible, to restore our bonds in common purpose, transcending disagreement, too, in shared and expanded civic space. And, at the same time, one of my rules of activism is: you don't need every, you just need enough.
As you all know, we didn’t win the freedom to marry easily, or over night. But we did win. People can rise to fairness. Change can happen.
We are now called to work to heal where we can, overcome what we must, lift up the truth, establish justice and accountability, protect democracy, and, yes, build back better. And we can. We are Americans.
Please be well, and stay safe, and keep going in hope –
Evan
