The thing I remember most from election night in 2016 is staring: staring at a blank white wall. The sassy political T-shirt that I had worn to the polls was crumpled in a corner, a regrettable rag. The cupcakes that we’d bought at the elementary school’s patriotic bake sale while waiting in line to vote were uneaten. At one point in the day, friends and I had discussed how we’d meet in a local bar to watch the results and celebrate. By early evening, we had cancelled the plan.

Instead, like so many Americans – the majority who voted, to be clear – I looked at the wall, wept, and feared for the future. The two years since have not been as bad as we anticipated; in many ways, they’ve been worse. We’ve changed. Each insane act of the Trump regime brings us through the same cycle: we’re appalled, we’re horrified, we grieve, we accept that this is the way our country works now. We brace ourselves for the next one.

Today, with our “I voted” stickers proudly displayed, we’re feeling, again, a little bit of hope. But as we brace ourselves for the healing wash of the Blue Wave, is it possible to fully detach ourselves from fear of the worst-case scenario? Or is a belief that today could change anything a dangerous kind of innocence?

Taylor Swift has told us to vote. Oprah has told us to vote. The salad place that I order my lunch online from on busy days in the office has also told me to vote. Anecdotal evidence of long lines at polling places and unprecedented tallies of early voters all seem to indicate that supporters of Democratic candidates are turning out in record numbers. We’ve never had so much to vote against before, as far back as we recall, and we’re proud to do it.

America has rarely been so black and white: people on the right loathe the things that folks on the left care about with equal intensity

But in our progressive bubble, we can’t disregard that there are so many Americans who believe that they’ve never had so much to vote for. For them, maintaining the status quo of racism, fascism, violence and lies is also a reason to get out of bed and stand in the rain.

America has rarely been so black and white: people on the right loathe the things that folks on the left care about with equal intensity. And while some of the leaders who we on the left are voting for today are important fresh new voices and faces with new ideas, many others are the same people who were fully involved in the failure of 2016. They’ve failed to mount a convincing or effective response to the Trump regime, opting for mediocre responses and even occasional complicity in the name of political cooperation with a rightwing regime that has no intention of anything like it. Re-electing them is far better than the alternative. But it is not a solution.

It’s good to be optimistic: in these dark times, what else do we have but our belief that America is better than this? But as we wait for the results tonight, let’s not forget the smug certainty some of us felt in 2016: our facile feminist slogans, our bubbles chilling in refrigerators, never drunk. Whatever the outcome tonight, Trump will still be the president tomorrow.

There’s no question that those on the left who once felt that complacency must never return to it again: whether we win or lose today, tomorrow and all of the days after will require the continued hard press of a radical politics that won’t cease until – or unless – fascism is driven out of America, and something resembling democracy is ushered back in. One good night tonight could be the beginning. But the real work will take so much longer. And it will continue to hurt.