#No matter who wins the election, you still have to care about politics

Perhaps most terrifying of all, though, is the realization that regardless of what happens next, the only thing that we know for sure is that no one’s coming to save us from the shark-infested waters we’ve been living in.

Yet in the anxiety-ridden weeks leading up to the election, some folks have allowed themselves to fantasize about what it would be like to wake up in a world where Donald Trump was not the president of the United States. What they imagine is a world where they can go back to the pointless shit they used to care about more than politics before the 2016 election. They imagine a world where they can finally rest easy once more, peacefully unaware and unengaged.

But this seductive fantasy is exactly that: an imaginary world with no basis in reality. Worse still, it’s a mentality that only threatens to perpetuate our collective nightmare.

Regardless of who wins the 2020 presidential election — be it poll-leading Joe Biden or notorious upsetter Donald Trump — neither result is your permission to care about politics any less than you have over the last four years. Whether the results leave us re-traumatized or relieved, neither is an end to any of the fights we’ve started paying more attention to since 2016. That’s especially true for those who’ve had the enormous privilege of not needing to care about politics much before Trump, since — unlike marginalized groups, immigrants, LGBTQ folks, and countless others — what we call “politics” was not inextricably tied to their survival.

Before you cuss me out and tell me to shut up, know that I get it. I really do. I understand that fatigue from life in the Hell Zone is very real. You’re allowed to fantasize about the relief of breathing your first gasp of fresh air after inhaling only water for four years, particularly those who’ve been fighting long before Trump’s presidency. I also understand not being able to even imagine what the world will look like after Tuesday. 

But a life vest, not salvation, is on the 2020 ballot. And it won’t help everyone at once. 

‘There’s no going back to brunch’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez provided us with the perfect terminology for the tone-deaf crowd looking forward to political apathy, when she warned that, “After we work to command victory in November, I need folks to realize that there’s no going back to brunch… We have a whole new world to build. We cannot accept going back to the way things were, and that includes the Dem Party.” In essence, “voting for Joe Biden, it’s not about whether you like him or not, it’s a vote to let democracy live another day.” 

Unfortunately, though, Back to Brunch discourse is now in full swing, both online and IRL (as captured in the SNL skit on the Trump addict). It’s an attitude that proves just how little we as a country have learned since 2016, and how many #resistance folks took the wrong lessons away from surviving Trump’s first four years (even if he does lose, there’s nothing stopping him from running again).

Now, that doesn’t mean that we can’t look forward to taking a breather, should the best-case scenarios come to pass. But we need to recognize we’re taking that breather while still running the marathon to save American democracy, not while crossing the finish line.

The idea of not having to care about politics is intoxicating. So intoxicating that it’s become one of the biggest selling points of the Biden campaign, with former President Barack Obama seducing voters with the promise that, “you’re not going to have to think about them everyday… You’ll be able to get on with your lives knowing that the president is not going to suggest we inject bleach.”

Here’s the thing though: Political apathy is a huge part of how we even got here. 

Failing to pay attention to the policies passed under the Obama-Biden administration is what allowed America’s abhorrent immigration policies to fester. Trump was right in the final debate: Those cages that the Trump administration used to corral children separated from their families at the U.S. border were used by the Obama-Biden administration, although not to separate families.

Understandably, in the months leading up to this election, Democratic voters have been apprehensive to talk about Biden’s shortcomings — since the alternative appears apocalyptic. But the Biden-Harris administration will still need to be watched like a hawk if elected on several issues (aside from immigration), including prison and justice reform, healthcare, climate change, and a COVID-19 response. We must also pay attention to how Biden patches things up with the World Health Organization and the Paris Accord, and what he actually plans to do relating to the makeup of the Supreme Court. 

We should also keep talking about the systems and loopholes that have been repeatedly threatening democratic elections in America for decades and will continue to do so after Election Day, regardless of who’s president: the electoral college, voter suppression, gerrymandering, systematic racism, foreign interference, unregulated tech monopolies’ total control over the most effective propaganda machine in history, and the political influence of the 1 percent. 

Remember how, over the past four years, you kept asking in exasperation, “How can he do that? Why is this possible? Why is no one stopping him?” You need to keep asking those questions because if Trump is elected out of office, those things still stay behind. Unless we keep fighting to change them, another ghoul (if not Trump himself) will inevitably rise to do this again. 

Don’t stop caring about how our elected officials violate human rights simply because they stopped tweeting about it every night.

For example Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Senator who over the summer, is not only running unopposed for another six years in Congress but appears to be. The GOP as a whole has been slowly but surely forging an alliance with QAnon conspiracy theory peddlers. Roughly two dozen candidates with various shades of QAnon in their pasts are also on the ballot this year. 

While some believe that QAnon will simply disintegrate if Trump loses, I’m less hopeful. Even if that optimistic prediction does come to true, the underlying inequalities, distrust, and civil unrest that led so many to gravitate to it will remain — ripe for whatever figurehead or movement wishes to take advantage of those vulnerabilities next. 

Don’t risk it

The greatest threats facing our nation won’t end after we elect either of these old white men to the White House because we’ll still have to wake up to face each other.

People are preparing for Nov. 3 like it’s the start of a civil war instead of an election. This response, while seemingly extreme, is actually more grounded in reality than those fantasizing about their brunch plans.

Many experts in political science and history have been trying to sound the alarm on the likelihood of a rise in political unrest and violence regardless of who wins. Two researchers recently published terrifying statistics about the possibility of this impending political violence, pointing out that the biggest indicator tends to be social inequality rather than the political leader in charge. Another recent political science study surveyed voters to ask, in a hypothetical scenario where the candidate they support did something blatantly destructive to democratic norms (like, say, refusing to agree to a peaceful transfer of power if voted out of office), would they stop supporting that candidate? Only about 3.5 percent said they would.

No matter who wins or whether QAnon specifically continues to thrive or not, white supremacist terrorists will still be one of our greatest domestic threats. Furthermore, the American political system will continue operating from its historical foundation of white supremacy, which means that — among many other issues stemming from racism and colonization — Black people will continue to be disproportionately killed by the police.

Don’t stop caring about how our elected officials violate human rights simply because they stopped tweeting about it every night. Even in the best of times, the end of a national election should be seen as an opportunity to return your energy to local politics and organizations fighting for the policies that often have a more immediate impact on your community’s day-to-day life. 

Voting is not enough, and it never has been enough. Trump is not the final enemy. Political disinformation, disengagement, disenfranchisement, and disempowerment are our enemies, too. 

Imagine a world where you care about American politics because your government makes you proud instead of angry.

I promise: Whatever you cared about more than politics before Trump took office is not only less important, but in all likelihood still impacted by politics — from the entertainment industry to sports. If you’re already feeling paralyzed by this prospect, though, there’s hope.

The rise in people’s political engagement over the past four years has led to the growth of some incredible grassroots movements. While many gaps remain, more and more regular people who are representative of this nation’s diversity are running for office, and actually winning (AOC and the rest of the Squad know this well). We need to keep caring about politics this much because, the more we do, the more it grounds our government in the real-world problems of everyday citizens — making it altogether less exhausting and difficult to care about.

We don’t need to give up fantasizing (or brunch) in order to make a promise to stay politically engaged after the election is over. But instead of longing for an imaginary world where we can safely go back to no longer caring, imagine a world where you care about American politics because your government makes you proud instead of angry.

We can’t risk going back to sleep now — not when we know what it’s like to live in a waking nightmare.