I’ve been in a near catatonic stupor since Wednesday. I can’t stop thinking of the hundreds of conversations I had canvassing outside of Pittsburgh in 2016. Some were invigorating. Some were difficult to judge. And some were insanely frustrating.
One house was a group of late 20s hipsters. All white and what I would classify as middle class, although some seemed to come from wealth (cars of the affluent in driveway). All articulate and presented well. All had voted for Obama in 2012. They said they were progressives. I felt good. My eventual introduction as an agent for the Clinton campaign was met with derision and scorn. They said she was a corporatist. They said she had cheated in the primary. They said she couldn’t be trusted with emails. They specifically said there was little difference between her and Trump. None were voting for Clinton.
It happened again and again. About every 15-20 houses or so. A self-professed progressive explaining to me, in completely nonsensical fashion, why a protest-vote or no-vote was in order this election.
And they weren’t just young hipsters. Lots in their 50s/60s. Completely oblivious to the fact that this election had truly historical ramifications. In that regard, one encounter was with an older male gay couple in Shady Side who fully embraced the notion that Clinton was no different than Trump. When I asked if they were concerned about a Trump Supreme Court overturning Obergefell, they replied, “I’ll guess we’ll learn our lesson if that happens.” I still don’t know what that meant.
Reasoning with these these folks was not a possibility. The had been fully co-opted by the GOP and Russia, and for sure the faux-outrage and misinformation from the now suspended Sanders campaign lingered in the psyche of many. It was a lost cause. I had never — not even close — seen anything like it in my many years of canvassing. A small but significant portion of our strident base was now intellectually disengaged, emotionally hijacked and programmed to sabotage our own candidate.
My dominant thought when I left PA was this — is this really going to happen and what the hell is going to happen to SCOTUS. I told my wife. I told her I was scared for our kids. I had that empty and sad feeling that occurs when your sense of right and wrong has been entirely upended. She thought I was being a bit hysterical, and told me not to worry. A poll came out a few days later showing Clinton safe in PA. I went on with life.
I got that same empty and sad feeling on election night. Obviously. Took a few months off after that and then got back into the game. I got the feeling again this past Wednesday, but it was even worse than on election night. I went home from work. I sat with my wife. I looked at her and said, “I told you so.” She replied, “yeah, I know.”