Dear Gossips,
I was going to write something about Timmy Ping Pong and how his ping pong movie is one of A24’s most expensive films to date, but who cares. It’s 11:30 PM CT as I write this, the US election has NOT been called, but it’s certainly not looking good. It’s looking like a replay of 2016. I hope I’m wrong. I really do. But I’ve been here before, and hope is hard to preserve when memory is so powerful. Lainey tried to have election conversations with me for six months and I kept shutting her down, not even particularly nicely (sorry Lainey), and this is why. I just couldn’t get my hopes up. Not again.
For the last couple days I’ve been writing about distractions, trying to provide a distraction, but I can’t muster it up right now. Take a look at my posts throughout the day and guess which ones I wrote earlier versus later in the evening, I feel like you can see my mood depressing in real time. It’s just hard not to despair when I think about how twice in less than a decade I’ve seen capable, qualified women run for president and lose to a felonious orange (once for sure, twice, probably). Whatever you may think of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, they’ve devoted their lives to public service. Donald Trump devoted his life to Donald Trump and, well, it’s worked out great for him.
To butcher an MLK quote, the arc of justice is long. But that really means counting not in years or even decades but in lifetimes. Whole lifetimes pass, people live and die, in a state of injustice. Injustice is, perhaps, the default state of the universe. Achieving better means swimming upstream, against violent currents. I think about my grandmothers, born before women had the right to vote. I think about my uncle co-signing my mom’s first lease because she couldn’t rent an apartment without a man’s signature on the dotted line. Things have gotten better—I have voted in every election since I turned eighteen, I own my own home without anyone else’s approval. But there are now many states where I cannot access reproductive healthcare. Currents carry forward, but they also push back.
I know there are readers here who don’t share my politics or vote for the same candidates I do, and you’re probably feeling an entirely different way today. And that’s okay. And not in some Chris Pratt “everyone be a good sport” way, but just I don’t begrudge anyone wanting to come here and gossip about celebrities. We all have our escape pods, and our escape pods often overlap. Whatever happens today, or tomorrow, or whenever, I want this escape pod to be here for all of us, I just need a minute to get my sh-t together because every election since I turned eighteen has been “the most consequential election” and damn, I am tired. That’s all I really feel right now—tired. Worn out and worn down.
I do want to shout out Mary-Katherine on The Squawk, for being such a cheerleader over the last few weeks, a source of optimism and information when all the news feels cynical and compromised, and for her tireless work in the real world to get out the vote and actively participate in our democracy. The only way things get better is if people get involved. The more of us swim upstream, the more manageable the current feels. I also want to thank everyone who has participated in civil discussions over this election, whether on The Squawk or in my inbox. I will get my sh-t together and we’ll keep gossiping, because movies will keep coming out and celebrities are still going outside. I just need a minute to scream into this pillow, and then I’ll get back to the escape pod.
Live long and gossip,
Sarah
