The Morning Before and the Morning After

The Morning Before

The day began in fog. It sat thick over the James River, hiding the water, the bridges, the highways, the Civil War Museum. I was out there running just after sunrise, scrabbling up and down the North Bank and Buttermilk trails and pausing every couple of minutes to gawp at the early-morning beauty: the heavy mosey of a freight train, a tunnel of tree branches showing off their autumn colors, the light poking through the mist to saturate the kudzu, the eerie calm of the cemetery where Presidents Monroe and Tyler were buried. It was so gorgeous I didn’t want the run to end, because while I was running I couldn’t think about the day ahead (“Election Day Is Here,” the New York Times informed me, mid-run), and because when I did reach my end, the real work of the day would begin.

I had come to Richmond, Virginia, to help ferry voters to the polls with an organization called Rideshare2Vote, which operates all over the country. This year, I wanted to actually do something besides vote and complain. With elections in swing states so close, I figured I could help bring in a handful or two of votes, and alongside all the other Rideshare2Vote volunteers, we might have an effect. To me, that felt more real than, say, phone-banking or donating money: I would be able to count the votes I’d made possible. I’d stay busy all day helping people instead of reading the news. And, most important of all, I could assuage my guilt over being a New Yorker who owns a car—mine would finally be put to a better use than picking up sleeves of seltzer from Whole Foods.

At first, I’d volunteered for Pennsylvania, but was informed by the organizers they had all the people they needed in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. They did, however, need folks in Richmond (and points further south), so I figured: Why not? I hadn’t been to Richmond in a decade, and I could visit my old high-school friend John Swart. I booked a hotel.

And now, just after 9 a.m. on Election Day, I was walking out of the hotel and over to my car in the adjacent parking garage. I had several bottles of water, plus a few bananas and other, and I’d had the car washed so we’d look presentable. I got in, turned the key, and opened the rideshare app to mark myself “Available.”

Then I waited.

Within minutes one of the other Richmond volunteers texted: It looked like we wouldn’t get many rides today, they said, so they planned to meet up at 11 near Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) to do some canvassing. Would I like to join?

Honestly, I felt weird about this. We were giving up on rides already? For canvassing? Canvassing felt like a shot in the dark: What, we’d just talk to people and somehow persuade them to go vote? It felt wishy-washy, hopey-dreamy. Also, it would require me to go up and talk to complete strangers, which technically I know how to do—I really have done an awful lot of that over the years—but which I hate. And at that moment, I hated the idea more than ever, more than I could even explain why. It was beyond ugh.

But after an hour of sitting in the car, hoping the phone would ping with a request, I put my emotional shit aside and drove over to Monroe Park, where the canvassers were gathering. A guy named Will—a former film studies major at VCU with a youthful face and slightly too-boxy blazer—was handing out the materials we’d need (clipboards, folders, sheets of paper) and briefing us on the process: We’d be going around the broader neighborhood asking people if they’d voted yet and tallying the responses in three columns: Voted Already, Haven’t Voted (Yet), Won’t Vote. For the Not Yets, we’d ask them if they needed more info—location of polling places, for example, or the fact that unregistered voters could file provisional ballots. For the Won’ts, we would ask them why not, and record their reasons. We also had a stack of Harris-Walz pins and stickers to hand out to whoever we felt deserved them.

It all seemed fairly simple, but I was filled with resentment. This was not what I signed up for! How could this possibly help? What was the point?

As the other volunteers paired up and wandered off, I was on the verge of quitting entirely, especially since I seemed to have been left solo. But just then, another volunteer arrived, and I realized that quitting in front of another person would be a lot harder than quitting alone. I would just have to—ugh—get over myself. Fine.

For the next two hours, Ivy Caravati—maybe ten years older than me, she’s an educator who raises cattle with her husband outside Richmond—and I wandered around the Fan (the leafy, lovely residential and commercial neighborhood north of VCU), accosting nearly everyone we passed. God, it was easy! “Excuse me,” I’d say, “can I ask a question: Have you voted yet?” Then they’d remove their Airpods or headphones and tilt their head in confusion because they hadn’t heard a word I’d said. So I’d say it again!

They were mostly but not entirely young: students and post-students and a few old folks, every race, every form of gender expression, every variety of personal style. (I was particularly impressed by a chill dude in a red tracksuit and a ponytailed blond girl mixing bright pink and acid green.) Most of them had already voted, and every single person who said they hadn’t also said they planned to. (Several did not know precisely where the polling places were, so we got to direct them!) Very few said they wouldn’t vote at all, but those were the most interesting, and challenging.

Many were international students, and they all said no with an air of sadness—maybe sadness that they weren’t permitted to vote, maybe sadness at having to give us this disappointing answer. I felt for them: how strange and difficult it must be to be surrounded by the election, to have a stake in its outcome, to be asked your thoughts, and then, ultimately, to be excluded from participation. Or maybe it’s no stranger than acclimating to any of the other bizarre facets of American culture.

One older guy said he’s lost his right to vote—we presumed because of a felony conviction. In Virginia, felons permanently lose their voting rights unless the governor chooses to restore them.

One couple, a young man and a young woman, waved us off, staring at their phones instead of engaging with us. When I pressed them, the young man said he’d explain his reasons, if I gave him a dollar. Figuring that’s probably a felony—and that he’s definitely an asshole—I declined.

Two white dudes drinking from paper-bagged bottles at a bus stop were more loquacious: They saw the system as a scam, and the parties as essentially identical. “When has a politician ever changed something in my lifetime?” asked one, who added that he wasn’t registered to vote. We assured him he could cast a provisional ballot, which Virginia does allow. The other noted he really hated “the orange guy” and might vote just to ruin his day. We heartily encouraged this, and reminded these guys that, you know, they didn’t seem to have much to do right now, and the polling places were just a few minutes’ walk away. They laughed, faking indignation (“We’re very busy people!”), and said they’d try to find the time. I think maybe they even did.

Another young student gave us the similar line: He just didn’t like either party, or either candidate, and while he considered himself a centrist, he would love to vote Green—but also knew a vote for the Green Party was a wasted vote.

Still, I pressed him: Forget the presidential candidates, I said, and think about the other races—mayor, city council, schoolboard. Those matter, and matter more directly; surely he could find his way into a voting booth and make a decision on at least one of them. Those are votes you don’t want to throw away.

He said he’d think about it, and I actually believe him. He really seemed to enjoy talking about politics, so maybe I got through to him. Maybe.

After two hours, Ivy and I had talked to close to 100 people, and I felt … weird. You ever get that sense you just did something that might have made a positive difference in the world? Like you’d gotten people to vote who didn’t know how or where to do it and who, without your intervention, might have thrown up their hands and gone on with their day? Like you might have delivered a dozen votes for the good guys, and that the other groups of volunteers might have done the same thing?

When I say I felt weird, I think I mean I felt… good.

The Morning After

I was expecting to wake to another round of fog, figurative more than literal. Instead I got blinding clarity on both fronts: The sun shone down on the James River, etching the precise outlines of the Federal Reserve monolith, the monstrous NewMarket headquarters, the offices of CoStar, the commercial real-estate media company, and some horrible new glass tower under construction directly across from my hotel-room window.

And yeah, the other thing. After drinks with John at a Japanese-ish restaurant in the Fan, where we watched the returns trickle in and argued about books and politics, I came home and just went to sleep, figuring the counts would take days to play out—that whatever the results, we just wouldn’t know for certain until every last vote was tallied. Instead, this. A majority of our fellow citizens freely chose fascism.

What the hell do you do now? How do you function today, let alone move on? Do you need comfort? An outlet for rage? An explanation? A plan? Do you look on the bright side? Do you go ever darker, doomscrolling into the abyss? Do look to history for a way out, a way through? Do you escape this reality with fantasy, with drugs, with nihilism? Do you minimize the horror, rationalize it away, contextualize it into a safe little unthreatening package? Do you welcome this as a wake-up call that will push this country—someday, somehow—onto the path to light? Do you sit there numbly texting your friends, not entirely sure what to say anymore? Do you just sit there numbly?

As I’ve said before, I’m not your guy for solutions. I don’t have any good analysis—I’ve often thought of myself as the worst political thinker of my generation. I’d rather just make a fart joke and go on to the next topic. And while I can tell you what I did next—what I’m going to do next—I’d hate to have you think this is somehow advice that you should follow.

Because what I did next was obvious: I went for a run. This time, I headed east along the Virginia Capital Trail, a smoothly paved path that rolled up and down hills into Henrico County, the river unseen on my right, neatly kept apartment complexes on my left. Today’s run was a fartlek, a Swedish term that means “speed play”; basically, you alternate intense sprints with short recovery jogs at even intervals. I was doing one minute of sprinting, one minute of recovery—twenty of each, total.

It was hard. The previous night’s beers weighed on me, and the hills from yesterday’s trail run had sapped some energy as well. Plus, I was worried I’d come across celebratory Trump runners in MAGA regalia, and I just did not want to deal with them.

What I did have going for me was WHITE-HOT FURY. Any time I felt myself begin to slow down, I tapped into that rage and adrenaline and pushed myself a bit farther, a bit faster. I would not let this shit get me down. I would keep going, and going, and going. I would be better than them—stronger, more dedicated. Those motherfuckers can’t touch me.

As I ran, my thoughts faded away. This is what I long for, why I run—to make my brain shut up. At first, it doesn’t: I think, I ponder, I come up with ideas and plans. But I’ve learned that I do all my worst thinking while running, so now I know I can push those ideas aside, abandon them completely. They’re crap.

But then, finally, blissfully, the thoughts stop, and I’m nothing but a network of lungs and legs, heart and blood and air, a truly living being just being alive. It’s the best.

And so that’s what I’m going to do now: I’m going to do everything I’ve always done. I’m going to run and cook and climb and eat and drink and hang out with my family and my friends. I’m going to think and talk and read and write. I am going to stick to my routine and make my plans, and I’m going to do everything in my power not to let the bastards get to me. I’m going to fight.

The day dawns, the fog lifts, and my eyes are open.

Read Yesterday’s Attempt