Remember?

Remember when election nights used to be fun? When we had parties, ate pizza, watched the results come in, and cheered each time a state was called for our candidate? When there was a point in the evening when the election would be called? When one candidate would give a victory speech and the other would stand with their family before subdued supporters and concede?

Remember when Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was your favorite movie, because you really believed that good could triumph over evil? When your idealism was still intact? 

Remember when the worst thing a presidential hopeful could do was cry in front of reporters? Or let out a little scream? When the worst president you could possibly imagine was a genial old movie star?

Remember when people voted for the guy they'd most like to have a beer with?

Remember your father calling you from Florida on election day and telling you how all his friends were mixed up at the polls, how upset everybody was thinking they'd voted for the wrong guy, something about chads, which you didn't quite understand but must surely be a little fluke, something local and inconsequential?

Remember when a certain former reality TV star announced his candidacy and everybody you knew thought it was a big joke? What a buffoon, you thought. Harmless, you thought. This was certainly just a cheap novelty act before the main show. And then, after that election, how you followed the news obsessively, as if the very fate of democracy depended on you knowing everything? When you noted each outrage, recalled it with your friends, shook your heads? When each fresh outrage fed you in some sick way? 

Oh yes, remember something called truth, which we all more or less believed in? Oh and remember, before all the monster storms, when climate change was mostly theoretical?

Remember that weird guy with the horns and the Davy Crockett hat?

And remember when you actually began to tire of the outrage, started just glancing at the headlines, when you began to open your New York Times app and went straight for Spelling Bee? When the outrage no longer fed you but began to make you nauseous, and even a little dizzy? When, if you brought any of this up at a party, your friends would put up their hand like a crossing guard and say, no talking about this tonight? 

Remember the first election you were alive for, Kennedy v. Nixon? How you sneaked down the stairs, curious about what your parents were watching, which you understood even at four years old was important. Remember how they asked you, Kennedy or Nixon, who do you think we're for? 

You had a 50-50 chance, and you guessed wrong. But it didn't matter. You weren't expected to know anything. They just laughed, gave you a hug, and sent you back upstairs.