Hope Scroll

The Mamdami election from afar, and other American moments I've watched from Europe

I’m trying to cut the cord with social media. I deleted Instagram from my phone and refused to sign up for TikTok. I do still sometimes log in on my laptop, but I’ve got a Rescue Time lock out that cuts me off at 10 minutes. I’m a bit of a junkie sneaking a fix, but I’ve done a good job taking control of my social media time recently.

Every so often something happens that sends me into Incognito Mode, scrolling content and feeling some sort of way about the collective read on the moment. Sometimes it’s horror, sometimes it’s despair, oftentimes it’s straight insanity. Today though, it’s hope.

I spent a good chunk of time, not hours like I might have once but maybe 20 minutes, scrolling posts about Zohran Mamdani’s historical election as the Mayor of New York City. Remixes, poems, campaign highlights, posts with AOC, congratulations from huge names, unknown names and everyone in between.

I know social media is a bubble. I know there’s another corner of the internet where the memes are hateful and the loss is bitter. I know the billionaires are trying to capitalize on our attention and feeding us divisive rage pads their pockets. Usually that’s enough to get me to stop.

But today, I am so glad to feel goosebumps of hope, to see an outpouring of humanity and values-alignment on a national scale. It’s a feeling I’ve missed, maybe one I didn’t fully understand. I remember having some hope when Kamala took the helm and when Obama was first elected, but nothing quite like this effervescence in my spine. Maybe it’s new, forged by the crucible of the Trump era.

I know my bubble will burst eventually, but for now I’m going to enjoy it. If this past year and a half of final move preparations, losing a surprise but much loved pregnancy, losing my dogs, moving to Germany, giving up alcohol, and dealing with the endless cascade of government bullshit has taught me anything, it’s that feelings are meant to be felt, fully and freely. There are excruciating feelings and there are elated feelings and everything in between, hope is one I’ve been missing.

It’s always a strange experience to watch the course of home from afar, especially in these monumental moments. I was in Europe when Obama was inaugurated. I had recently arrived in Granada, Spain, fresh into my first venture far away from home as a study abroad student. I went with a few people to an Irish bar to watch the inauguration, but mostly no one cared. It was a flimsy excuse to drink and bury ourselves in an English-speaking locale. One person stopped me on the street in the following days and, judging from my lackluster Spanish, asked how I felt about Obama before launching into an impassioned monologue about hope and change and yes, we can. But that was it. There was no other inkling of engagement or care for this big-deal thing that was all over campus back home.

I was also in Europe during the first Trump administration. The government shut down then, too, over the border wall. At the time, it was the longest government shutdown ever, topped only by the one that we’re currently in and trouncing the previous record by nearly two weeks. I was studying the effects of border walls on forest ecosystems in Berlin, and despite the relevance of the politics du’jour and the fact that the United States lost billions of dollars and people were freaking out about how they were going to pay for things once their paychecks stopped, the vibe here in Germany was of isolated ignorance. I was pissed, everyone else around me was just living their lives. Clearly, they had never had to worry about whether promised but undelivered government funding would immediately impact their daily lives.

Politics is supposed to be boring. Here in Germany, it is. The state funds elections, there are posters up for a few weeks beforehand, people can vote online and the whole process is kind of over and done with. There’s not the same political sussing out and camp entrenchments, at least not that I can see. I’m sure there’s a population that cares deeply and gets involved, but with limits on campaign finance and a status quo that has a robust social safety net over whose destruction people would mutiny, it’s just kind of a background noise.

I hardly remember when that was the case in America. I had debates with classmates over the Junior High lunchtable, switching sides of the bench if we were for Kerry or Bush. I incited some “boos” from my classmates when I gave an opinion on the Bill Clinton scandal as part of a 4th grade current events project. Young people in America are groomed to the party system, and the advent of social media has made these camps even starker. I’ve felt over the past ten years that I’m simultaneously subsumed by politics and also that I’m completely sick of it all. In all honesty, that was eating me alive. It’s a part of what prompted our move to Germany, and the detachment here has felt at times very liberating and very isolated.

Which is why hope feels so good. Why the prickle of the voices of millions of voters sits in my heart. It’s not an answer. One mayor, a redistricting map, a few governors, and a handful of down-ballot candidates is not an answer to all the world’s problems. But it’s a sign. A reminder that coming together over shared values is a worthy and winning cause. That human connection and grassroots efforts pay off. It’s nice to feel that reminder in a part of me that I worried was buried too deep.

Like all the other moms out there in the trenches of the world sharing their feelings on social media, I needed this.