Today, I will allow myself to be sad – to feel this failure. To cry. To feel the hate. To feel the disappointment, the anger, the fear, the sadness. But the sun rose today, and the Earth is still spinning. That means there is still room for hope and survival.

Written by Emily Barkann, Chief White House Correspondent

“It keeps me awake / The look on your face / The moment you heard the news / You’re screaming inside / And frozen in time / You did all that you could do”

7:30 a.m. November 6, 2024. “They called it. They took the presidency, the House, and the Senate.” A rare morning where I was immediately wide awake after my fiancé Joe woke me up. I watched the news for two hours before braving the day. For once, I wasn’t running late because of exhaustion.

I sit at my desk in a quiet office. Numb. Is it the Lexapro working its magic or is it just my lack of shock in the results of an election decided by a hateful majority of our republic? So many thoughts swirling around my head. Or I should say my “giant pumpkin head” as a right-wing maniac commented on a social media post with a photo of myself, my mother, and Vice President Harris at a rally in Philadelphia a few weeks ago. I now turn to writing – the only place I have ever turned when I have found myself so deeply burrowed inside my own mind.

“The game was rigged, the ref got tricked / The wrong ones think they’re right”

I’m remembering eight years ago. November 8, 2016. I was twenty years old and a sophomore at Syracuse University in central New York. I raced home – a 4.5-hour drive - to Delaware County, Pennsylvania for a less than 24 hour visit to cast my vote for Hillary Clinton – the first woman President of the United States of America – or so I thought.

My family and I went out to dinner after hitting the polls and watched in disbelief as the Republican candidate pulled ahead in the electoral college. Later that night, after I had fallen asleep on the family room couch, my mom woke me up at around two in the morning – “C’mon, let’s go to bed. It’s over.” I trudged up to my room feeling the exact same way I feel again, today, eight years later.

My brother and I went to a small, private, left-leaning Quaker school in the East Falls section of Philadelphia. My brother (who is four years younger than me) told my mother what he experienced at school that day, November 9, 2016. A day that was the culmination of months of divisiveness in the small community. My mom called me upset, “The teachers were crying, and many didn’t show up to class. I had to wake up and be his mom today – his teachers needed to wake up and be his teachers today, too.” While the teachers were allowed to be upset, she was right. Adults were scared and confused, but so were children. The problem laid in the fact that giving up and succumbing to the weight of the political failure was also deeply un-American. I always remembered the fault in the reaction.

“And the big bad man and his big bad clan / their hands are stained with red / Oh, how quickly, they forget”

January 6, 2021. I was twenty-four years old. Living in my suburban Pennsylvania childhood home with my parents and Joe. I was in the middle of my political science master’s degree program. I came downstairs after waking up on a cold January morning. I made myself a cup of coffee and prepared for a day of assigned reading about the changes to polling in the past four years.

I looked at the small television my parents keep in the kitchen. Smoke is billowing from the Capitol Building. During that time, I was watching The Handmaid’s Tale. The image was all too familiar. I stayed glued to that seat until it was dark outside. This had to be the end of him – the end of all the hate, a nail in the coffin. It just had to be. The depression and anxiety of the past four years was beginning to dissipate, a dim light started to shine even on one of the darkest days in American history.

“You were outnumbered, this time… / They think that it’s over / But it’s just begun.”

I’m now 28-years-old. Since that November 2016 day, I graduated college, began working life, won an Emmy Award, survived a pandemic, lost two grandparents, earned my master’s degree, became a White House correspondent, started teaching a group of students political journalism each year, began law school, made a major career change, got engaged to the love of my life, gained a small following on social media, and used that social media to HEAVILY advocate for Vice President Kamala Harris – the first woman President of the United States of America – or so I thought…AGAIN.

History repeats itself, it’s true. I didn’t think that it would be this history that would repeat itself, though; especially only eight short years later. It is fascinating that the physical feeling in my body is exactly the same. Not quite grief. Not quite sadness or anger. Rather, almost a feeling of languishing, mixed with exhaustion, mixed with sadness and heartbreak. It is hard to put into words.

I am now reminding myself of what my mom said almost a decade ago. I put in the work this campaign season. I went to rally after rally, I created as much content as my busy law school schedule allowed me to. But I need to wake up today and be the same Emily Barkann that existed on November 4, 2024. Be the same Emily who managed to achieve and succeed in the face of fear from 2017-2021.

“Don’t say you’re too tired to fight / It’s just a matter of time / Up there’s the finish line / So run, and run, and run / Only the young”

Today, I will allow myself to be sad – to feel this failure. To cry. To feel the hate. To feel the disappointment, the anger, the fear, the sadness. But the sun rose today, and the Earth is still spinning. That means there is still room for hope and survival. I WILL get through today. Even if it takes playing “Only the Young” by Taylor Swift over and over and over. And I will get through tomorrow, and the next day, week, month, all the way up until Tuesday, November 7, 2028. I will stand tall, become stronger, help where I can, and FIX IT for the next time. Because we can’t say we’re too tired to fight. Because we must give it back to the hateful, the selfish, the greedy, as hard as they have tried to give it to us. Because women deserve it – they deserve to be fought for. In 50 years, 80 years, 150 years, women will look back and they will know that we didn’t give up easy or without a fight. But it is only possible if I get through today, and the next day, and the day after that. I owe it to them.

I get to wake up today in my twenties, at the beginning of a (hopefully) long career, and continue following in the footsteps of the likes of Harris, Clinton, Pelosi, Ginsburg, Dickinson, Sotomayor, Austen, Anthony, Winfrey, Swift, and the list continues. That is a gift – even though it doesn’t feel like it right now. Only the Young.