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Like many of you on election night, I was like, “What the hell,” as I watched the map turn very red. I was feeling a little defeated and wondering if it was all for nothing. I harassed the hell out of people to go vote. I mean, you would have thought I had money invested in it.

That day and the next, my Trump supporting acquaintances had a good time. Some even teased us on social media. I could not believe anyone wanted four more years of this.

My sister was chatting with an acquaintance who said her 401K had never been higher. White people historically have always had a low threshold for humanity when it affects their wallet. I mean, slavery was built on the need for expertise and labor. African people knew how to cultivate the ground to grow crops that created wealth for the ones who were able to harness it. So no, they did not want the money to stop.

On television and the internet, I watched all those long lines to vote in Georgia and thought, “What are they doing down there, and why are they not better organized?”

Yeah, I was armchair quarterbacking.

First, let me apologize and ask the forgiveness of Stacey Abrams, her team and all the many other people who worked those sections of the country quietly and in the dark. Y’all worked that thang! And, you have shown us how it needs to be worked. You did not broadcast your moves, you just worked it.

Something we thought was dead started to look alive again. And pretty soon we got so swept up in it, we forgot our misery, all  because you showed us we can make a difference. We stayed up all night to watch the numbers roll in. No one wanted to be asleep when a state turned blue, signaling that Vice President Biden and Kamala Harris had more votes than the incumbent.

And in that same fashion let me first give honor to God who heard the cry of his children who have been living through four of the worst years in United States history, which ended with a pandemic that killed more 200,000 Americans. Also, let me shout out to all of the other people, like me, who harassed everyone they knew to go perform their civic duty. As Michael Harriot, senior writer at The Root, calls them: the folk who “made people put on pants” and go vote.

Every adult in my immediate and extended family voted except for my 95-year-old cousin, who lost her mail-in ballot. As I was watching the numbers come in, there were times I regretted not dragging my cousin to the polls, but I wasn’t ready for that smoke. She told me she had voted in every election up until this one. I respect her age and mindset, and she knows where she fits in the overall picture.

This is not true of some others. We need to create laws that deal with the mental health of our elected officials. We should not ever be taken hostage as a nation by just any leader again. We need procedures in place that can remove people who show clear signs of mental health issues, especially if it affects their ability to make good decisions. It needs to start at the local level and work its way up so that citizens are not at the mercy of some delusional person under the guise of democracy. The criteria for serving needs to be more than white and male. Our leaders need to reflect our diversity and ability.

We can change the world. The people who turned out the vote in 2020 showed us that this is just the beginning. They turned my redneck, republican county into the heart of blue, much to the embarrassment of the folks who run the place. It gave me hope like you cannot believe. It has given hope to millions of others who have felt invisible. But like Hamilton says, “Just you wait.”