The Democrats tried to figure out the complex process of how to use (or not use) the power of the government to make people’s lives better while trying to address a waning pandemic and the economic catastrophe it caused.

The Republicans said if things are not how you want them to be, it’s someone else’s fault, and here’s how we’re going to hurt them.

Americans didn’t understand the Democrats, and the Republicans made them feel good.

I said “This is who America is” not “This is who we are” because I am no part of a “we” that says this is who “we” are. I am not this. I didn’t fight for this. The people I spend time with are not this. None of the three spaces I’ve lived are like this. But America is like this.

If this is America, I need to reconstruct my politics. If this is who we elect, and this will be our judiciary, and these are our values, we need a different politics. We could have cared about each other, we could have worked to build an effective, efficient, operable government that ensures safety and equality of opportunity, and a minimum life of dignity.

We could do these things, if we had a public that supported them. Some states will still be able to do these things. But I think I have to abandon hope that we have the fortitude and desire to tackle the hard problems. Instead, I have to accept that we are going to fail those tests entirely, we have failed those tests, and I need to act to mitigate and protect against harms to my family and my community the best that I can.