The Audacity of NOPE

We did it. In Survivor-speak, we Outplayed, Outwitted, Outlasted the abomination that has been the past four years under the hideous orange stain of the Trump badministration.

For four years — actually more as we had to endure the time between election and inauguration — in which we existed in a horrid miasma of grief, neglect, outrage, shock, and indignation. It has been exhausting. Such a constant onslaught of jawdropping that we now suffer from collective TMJ.

The contrast between what he had for eight years with President Obama — decency, humility, compassion, empathy, sympathy, intelligence — and what we were forced to witness — grift, abuses, immorality, nepotism, anti-intellectualism, open hatred, proud racism, a disdain for science, and a complete and obvious contempt for the American people.

But something happened on the way to this day. We rallied. We opened our eyes widely. We acknowledged how we got to such a dark place. And we committed to ourselves, to one another, to this grand experiment called the United States of America — we committed to the audacity of NOPE.

We would not stand for four more years of Trumpism. We would not allow four more years of degradation, of abuses, of criminality. We would not stand by and watch as hundreds of thousands more of our fellow citizens died from a pandemic, died from governmental neglect.

We said NOPE. We spread NOPE. We voted NOPE. We won and sent a resounding NOPE to every grifting dirtbag who had flourished under the open encouragement of the Chief Grifter. We said NOPE to the flag waving, boat parading, screaming, screeching howler monkeys in our citizenry who had their enclosures flung open so they could freely fling their shitful racism and white supremacist insecurities for four long years.

We said NOPE to more discrimination. We said NOPE to cronyism. We said NOPE to failure heaped upon failure. We said NOPE to using government position purely for personal aggrandizement. We said NOPE to every pointedly abusive executive order, every “Acting” official who did not earn their position through anything but blind ambition and a willingness to turn their soul over to every baser instinct they had. They abandoned any sense of humanity they owned to worship at the altar of an animated herpes sore on the body politic.

We said NOPE to ignoring so many in our society. We said NOPE to the wholesale targeting of group after group of our fellow citizens who want only the freedoms and protections afforded to everyone else. We said NOPE to the ongoing destruction of this planet. We said NOPE to the darkest of futures for our children and their children.

We embraced again the audacity of HOPE by fervently expressing this audacity of NOPE.

As I sit here watching the opening formalities of the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, I am filled with optimism, joy, relief, hope, and patriotism. That last one is so very important. The word ‘patriot’ has been bastardized so badly for so long now by MAGAts, Qanon lovers, militia LARPers, and every horrid supporter of the carnage dealt by Trump.

Patriot describes US. It was patriotism — true patriotism — that was ignited and galvanized to bring this day about. Patriotism, a deep love of country, a profound belief in how we can recover, what we have to offer the world, what we can become. Patriotism is about protecting the ideal, about bettering the ideal. It is about carrying the best of our founding forward while acknowledging it did not include so many and bringing them, finally and fully, under the protections and intent of our Constitution. It is about course correction, inclusion, redefining itself for NOW and for the future. It is not about clinging to a past that served YOU and abused others.

So much is changing in this moment. Can you feel it?

As I type, we now have our first woman Vice President. What a profound moment for all women. Men, what you are seeing in so many of your female friends, your wives, your girlfriends, your coworkers is recognition. We are seeing ourselves in a new space. A space that has for hundreds of years been off limits, then kept out of our reach. Adding to that that VP Harris is a woman of color? I cannot even begin to comprehend the emotion felt by every person of color watching. I thrill to think of every child watching her, seeing themselves, daring to hope for their own futures, futures in which they, too, can be anything they aspire to be.

Milestones. We are reaching them today, and we will speed past them, advancing to the next and the next and the next.

President Biden has already surrounded himself with experience, intellect, science. But he has also surrounded himself with the rainbow of humanity — not only in color, but in gender, in sexual orientation.

Yesterday, when it was announced that Pennsylvania’s Dr. Rachel Levine had been nominated to the position of Assistant Health Secretary, for me, it was a very personal moment. A transgender woman proudly brought into the national spotlight, not as a token, but as a proficient, skilled, educated, intelligent, dedicated public servant.

My son is transgender. It is a fact we have not hidden, a fact of which we are proud. He is the best human being I know. Not because he is transgender. But because he has to exist in a world where being transgender places a target on his back, yet he perseveres in doing the boldest act possible — HE LIVES. He lives proudly, openly. He lives like you and me — doing everything you and I do on the daily. He grocery shops, he watches Netflix, he works, he goes to school, he takes his dog for walks, he loves his friends, he mentors younger people, HE LIVES.

Dr. Rachel Levine has been nominated by President Biden (that feels so good to type) not because she is transgender, but despite her being transgender. Her status in that regard was not a job qualification, but neither was it a job hindrance. And to every ignorant bigot who has used the past 24 hours to type the ugliest things out onto the internet? Piss off. Every single one of you. Take your hate, your fears, your bigotry and piss the fuck off.

You have zero idea about Dr. Levine, just as you have zero idea about my son. But I will give you one thing to know for certain — they are better PEOPLE than you will ever hope to be. Because they have the audacity to say NOPE to you and your notions of them, your targeting of them, and your complete ignorance of how like you they are. They want nothing more than to live their lives in peace.

President Biden’s cabinet and all offices will be filled with people like Dr. Levine. People for whom public service is a calling not an opportunity to grift. People who have studied and experienced and made strides in all areas. People who will endeavor to make OUR lives better, not just THEIR lives better.

I am overwhelmed as I sit here listening to the calming words, the gentle tone of a man who has served his country for over three decades. Listening to a man who has been tested by tragedy, tempered by grief, and who has been forged like steel in the fires of both. He is the man, the HUMAN BEING, for this moment.

I sit here feeling that once again we have a chance. A chance to course correct, to lead, to innovate, to grow, to defeat a pandemic, to protect our planet, to rededicate ourselves to our better angels, to LIVE.

We have this chance, this moment, this elation, this soaring in our hearts and souls because we did what this nation has done in the past. We took our horror, our incredulity, our anger, our grief and came together, we rose to the occasion, and we looked our adversary dead in the eye and said NOPE.

Onward…