I Accidentally Locked My Child in the Car the Day After the Election

Some lessons are unfortunately learned the hard way. (And, yes, my daughter is totally fine.)

Photo by Marco Aurélio Conde on Unsplash

In 2016, my husband LaQuenza and I hosted an election watch party in our new house. It was the first presidential election I had voted in as a Mississippi resident, and the mood was optimistic among our liberal friends. We drank beer and ate snacks, crowding around the TV on our thrifted, mismatched furniture while the election results poured in and states turned blue or red. My dad happened to be visiting (my dad who I know voted for Trump despite his reluctance to admit it) and I thought about how awkward it would be for him when his candidate came out of the race bruised and battered.

Well, it was awkward, but clearly not in the ways I had imagined. It was the worst party I’ve ever thrown, and I blame America.

Eight years later, I watched the little meter on the New York Times website that measured the likelihood of a presidential win tick from a light pink 53% to a crimson 85%. I tried to remember how my understanding of living in red state Mississippi—and in particular, of living in a blue dot inside that red state—had changed when Donald Trump became president the first time around. 

Because it did change. Once the shock receded in 2016, I began to understand what many who did not share my privileged and sheltered perception of the world had already grasped: there was no safety net. The election result was simply the removal of the illusion of one. There was no big brother coming to “save” Mississippi from itself because Mississippi’s disconnected-from-reality red state politics had reached the White House.

Blue voters living in red states know that there is no such a thing as a perfect political safe haven in America.

This year, a few days before the election, I asked LaQuenza if he thought Kamala Harris would win. “No,” he replied.

“Really? Are you serious?” I felt my indignation rise, as if his blunt pronouncement were a personal affront. But then I also had to confront the dread at the root of my question. I had to admit that my hope was a sweet indulgence, something too good to be true, but a comfort nonetheless. I wasn’t under any illusion that the first woman president would solve all America’s problems or even most of them, but the choice was a no-brainer for me. With Mississippi’s election results all but decided, I put my hope in the hands of the enlightened voters in seven swing states. (Side note: how depressing it is to know that your vote doesn’t really count in a national election?)

Of course, we know what happened next.