So, indeed, as the evidence has suggested over the previous days, Joe Biden has been elected the 46th President of the United States. This is, in my opinion, and the opinions of many other people, very good news. President Biden and VP Kamala Harris will be, at the very least, stable, straightforward, literate, and empathetic leaders, which is definitely an improvement over the previous occupant.

That said, this election was most emphatically not the landslide that many predicted. Biden won the clear majority of votes (the most votes cast for a President ever, in fact), though still, somewhere around 47% voted for the other guy, even after he showed us exactly who he is over the last four years. That fact there is not encouraging; his level of support relative to 2016 actually went up this time by many measures. While I am wholeheartedly glad that we’ll have new management come January 20, The fact that almost half this country thought the last four years were a good thing is not something I care to contemplate, and is keeping me from truly being excited and joyful at what I should consider a very good thing.

I worry that half this country is happy with an intellectually incurious, impulsively dishonest, poorly spoken man-child, bereft of subtlety and posessing racist and fascist tendencies at the helm of the ship of state. Those folks are not going away. I really do appreciate all the calls for unity from the President-Elect all the way down, though unifying is a difficult thing when one side considers the other side subhuman; I have watched the legimate fear of my friends in marginalized groups -LGBTQ+, POC, Immigrants, etc – especially over the last four years increase, and I worry for them.

I am pretty much the epitome of privilege in this country; white, male, educated, and relatively well-off financially; I’m on the cusp of actually benefiting from Republican “tax cuts at the top, all the time” policies in play for the last 40 years. I don’t agree with those policies, obviously, and genuinely believe in Keynesian economic theory, a strong social safety net, and expansion of policies supporting the public good, like universal access to health care, education, and all kinds of other things that those on the right label as “socialist” evils, even if they themselves would benefit from them.

That half the country is opposed to those things, oppose rights for others besides themselves, and generally scoff at the concept of a citizen’s responsiblity to their community, and would rather rally around a bloviating fascist who tells them that at least they’re better than <insert minority boogieman here>, still really scares me, and I worry about what that says for the future of this country, as historical evidence of this kind of thinking hasn’t gone particularly well.

But, as several friends from my beloved community of misfits have said in the last 24 hours, we have to try to savor the victories we win in order to find the energy to keep working to make things better. And indeed I am trying; and it’s almost working.

While I was engaged doing volunteer parental duty to ensure that an international dance competition in the age of COVID went off with minimal issues, I missed a lot of the big news of the day. But today, as I rest after a good night’s sleep (the first in a while), I got a chance to check out Biden’s and Harris’s “acceptance” speeches (as results won’t be certified for a while yet, but it’s as mathematically certain as to not matter).

Joe Biden showed his empathy, literacy, and genuine tendencies toward the public good, and calling for unity and promising to do his best to make life better for all of us. He used complete sentences, literary and historical allusions, and even quoted my grandmother’s favorite Catholic hymn. He showed he’s a decent and honorable man, which, frankly, is exactly what we need right now.

Harris, as well, showed empathy, dedication, and humility, recognizing the pioneers of past who made it possible for her to ascend to this office, which, we cannot forget, is a huge (and overdue) milestone in history. First woman, first Black person, first Asian-American, and first child of immigrants to hold the office. This is, as President-Elect Biden once said, a “Big F**king Deal,” and VP-Elect Harris recognizes the historical significance, but most of all, the others who will take inspiration from her example:

But while I may be the first woman in this office, I won’t be the last.

Because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.

And to the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message:

Dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourself in a way that others might not see you, simply because they’ve never seen it before.

And we will applaud you every step of the way.

The importance of that statement, the image of a woman like her in that position cannot be underestimated; I’m glad I am here in this world to witness it.

So yes, I am trying to enjoy the victory here, and take inspiration to continue to work to keep our new national leaders honest and accountable, and to help them realize the image Biden closed his speech with last night:

A nation united.

A nation strengthened.

A nation healed.

Let’s do this.