Real people, real issues. Screenshot.



For the start of another bleak week at the circus, a reminder that our future boasts the succor and promise of political leaders with empathy, decency, values and emotional intelligence who may yet - please God - take the reins of power from the soulless cretins now in charge. Thus, the warm, wise, movingly real moment with Elizabeth Warren at an Iowa campaign event when Raelyn, a 17-year-old high school senior, took the microphone. "I was wondering," she began, her voice tremulous with fear and feeling, "if there was ever a time in your life where somebody you really looked up to maybe didn't accept you as much? And how you dealt with that?" Warren paused, nodded, and, her own voice cracking, began a story about her mother's response to the news of Warren's first marriage ending.

"I heard the disappointment in her voice," she said. "But I also knew it was the right thing to do, and sometimes you just gotta do what's right inside and hope that maybe the rest of the world will come around to it." Then she asked to give Raelyn a hug. Later, Raelyn said Warren had whispered, "We've got it. We're going to be OK. You're going to get through this." For many, the deeply human exchange highlighted where we've been and where we're hopefully going - with (almost) any of the Democratic candidates offering a bright light into the future. Warren has often, pointedly extended that light to young girls: On the campaign trail, she adds to the proverbial photo op by telling young followers she's running for president "because that's what girls do," enacting a "pinky promise" that they remember that, and declaring, "We're in this together." Yes, please.

The pinky promise to remember "that's what girls do." Photo by Kelsey Kremer/The Register