Suddenly, I found myself sitting in a strange coffeehouse. It was barren. The walls were painted a dark, punitive gray. No one had coffee or food or anything else on the table where they sat. Everyone sat alone and paid no attention to anyone else.
How could I be so passionate about someone like him? Had I lowered my standards and expectations so drastically that he could be a savior?
There was no background noise—no suction sound of an espresso machine, no clink of silverware lightly scraping porcelain, no rustle of conversations. Everyone was sullen. All eyes were riveted on the wall-mounted television. On the screen were stock headshots of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Across Biden’s chest was the number 268. He was just two votes shy of the number of electoral votes needed to beat Trump. Two stinkin’ votes! All he needed was one more state! Any old state! Even Alaska would do! Come ooooooooon, BABY!
But in the few states that were still too close to call, Trump was ahead. I was nauseous with anxiety. And then some guy came in the coffeehouse and loudly said, “Hey, what’s up with Trump?”
What I felt then was like a burning blast of road rage. I couldn’t help myself. I unloaded on the guy. I shouted, “What the hell’s the matter with you? It’s because of people like you that this thing is even close! This should be a blowout! This should be a shutout!”
I was all up in the guy’s face, yelling at him at point blank range. “How can anybody fall for a two-bit con man like Trump? And don’t give me that crap about economic anxiety! You think you’re the only one feeling economic anxiety? This is how fascists come to power, you know! They whip up hatred in gullible idiots like you!”
It felt sooooooo good to let him have it like that. I know this is a time when we’re all supposed to be seeking unity, I said to myself. We’re all supposed to be tolerant of points of view that differ from our own. But I can only be so tolerant of fools.
The guy leaned back and held up his palms, as if to be pushing himself away from me. “Hey,” he said to me, “I don’t even like Trump. I’m with Biden.”
And then I woke up.
That was the dream I had on Election Night. As I slowly regained consciousness, I felt embarrassed about it, not because I ripped into the guy, but because I let myself get so carried away over Joe Biden. How could I be so passionate about someone like him? Had I lowered my standards and expectations so drastically that he could be a savior?
But even during my subsequent waking hours, I still felt the same sense of dire election urgency that overcame me in my dream. But I didn’t feel as embarrassed about it because I came to realize that what was so important to me wasn’t that Biden win, but that somebody pay a price for what Trump and his henchmen had wrought.
Neither Mitch McConnell nor Lindsey Graham would pay that price. They both won easily. So that left Trump. If he won, too, they’d all giddily prance on into another four years of terror. And I couldn’t bear that.
That’s why I was so blissfully relieved when it was all over. A lot of my friends were upset that the race was so close. But I don’t know, maybe I’ve been a Chicago sports fan for too long, because I’m happy to take a win any way I can get it. A win is a win, even if it isn’t pretty.
So I’m letting myself enjoy this. It will all wear off soon enough.