This Week in Millennial History: We Elected a Lesbian!
Everything is so intense that I forgot this was even a thing.
I’m going to start this mini-feature, and try to keep up with it, where I highlight and share (highly drafted, not fully-formed) thoughts of what happened in recent history during the week I’m publishing. I’ve only looked up this week, and some of it may be a stretch, so we’ll see how it goes. If you have any ideas of what to cover upcoming let me know.
On November 6, 2012, Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay person to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, was a headline the morning following election day, where Obama beat Romney pretty easily.
I remember being at work that following morning, and no one seemed to be talking about the significance of this particular moment. The whole conversation was around Obama winning and it felt very … casual. I was in San Francisco, so perhaps it was just part of that environment, but it all felt so safe and easy.
I don’t even remember being worried about the election in the days leading up to it; honestly, I’m struggling to even remember what the big debates were. (Healthcare? Iraq? Like?) What I do remember is the president of Banana Republic (where I worked) was on a stage that next morning in front of the whole company, and shared that he was in a good mood because of the election. “If that reveals something about me…” he said, not finishing the thought, barely apologizing about breaching a corporate taboo.
How different 10 years can be. 2012 feels like a child’s sandbox compared to the mess that was 2016 and, of course, everything after it. I guess there really isn’t a point to this – me saying that politics is messy and dangerous right now is hardly original or interesting – but it does feel like a lifetime ago to think that we were celebrating the first openly gay Senator. It mattered, during a time where we still couldn’t get married and Facebook was a fun place for pictures where I was scared to put which sex I was interested in dating. Now, of course, we can get married and we’re more afraid it’ll be taken away, and I don’t even know if you still say which sex you’re interested in on Facebook because I haven’t had an active profile for more than two years but here I am writing all sorts of gay gay gay things. (I’m interested in men, by the way.)
I mean, everything is so messy that (I hate to admit that) I forgot that Tammy was in there in the first place. And I assume she’s doing well? I don’t even know off the top of my head where she falls on things and I like to consider myself fairly up-to-speed on the state of the world. (I listen to The Daily!) It seems like identity politics has completely been blown up in the past 10 years, too, at least in the way that 2012 felt so easy. I remember seeing some news clip after 2016 where they were interviewing a Florida man, who was gay and a drag queen, about why he voted for Trump and it scrambled my brain. I feel like in my 2012 bingo card this wouldn’t have come up, but what I have learned is that my god nothing is so clearly drawn down the line of black and white that I thought it was that year.
Which is another way to say, politics is far more than just the presidential race or identities. Know who your representatives are and please, please, please vote. This wild experiment of democracy is too important to not and people who don’t vote are just such a turn-off. (Not interested in non-voters.)
Anyway, thanks, Senator Baldwin. Glad you’re in there.