On Wednesday, I woke up at 4:00 a.m. to make the drive from New Jersey to Washington to be back in time for Torts. I don’t know if it was just the cover of night, but the world did not seem that much different from when I went to bed on Tuesday. For the drive, I put on the same music that I would have been listening to when I was 13, back when President-elect Donald Trump was elected into his first term in office (I’ll let you do the math on how old that makes me). I’m older now, I would like to think I’m wiser, and this is the first election in which I was able to cast a ballot. I, like many of us, was feeling a lot of different things, and I think watching the sun rise over Delaware had me feeling contemplative.
I felt cynical when I got in the car, wondering why I felt this urgency to drive four hours for a doctrinal lesson when we just had probably the most important election of any of our lifetimes. It becomes difficult to distinguish between what actually matters, especially when we go through something that is so consequential. I have people in my life who voted in both directions — and some who did not vote at all — and what everyone had in common was this sense of futility, where ultimately nothing we did mattered because it was somehow predetermined for us. I voted, but part of me felt like it didn’t mean very much. Regardless of my choice, I was in a state that was always going to be blue in the projections. My vote didn’t matter. I think a lot of people, regardless of for whom they voted, had that same sentiment.
I don’t know what this election means for democracy. I think a lot of people have lost their faith in our democratic system, whether they believe that voting is no longer a sacred act due to interference, or that the electoral college is a tool to silence the majority of Americans, and it feels like there’s very little about our system that people still stand behind. What I do know, however, is that for law students, this election feels far more important than it did four years ago. We all have different reasons for why we wanted to come to law school in the first place, and we all fall along the very large spectrum of voters and ideologies and opinions and beliefs, but we have in common a passion for the law and confidence that there is right and wrong. There may be a lot of gray in between, but we ultimately believe that there is some system — regardless of how imperfect right now — that must be upheld to preserve our country. Whether that system is one you want to dismantle, to reinforce, to modify through action and activism, or to abandon entirely, we believe in the rule of law and the principles that guided our forefathers.
When Congress first voted to establish the George Washington University, and when they ultimately decided to rename it after the first president of the United States, I do not think they realize how politicized our environment would ultimately become. Especially when we consider that George Washington warned us against the two-party system and the dangers that partisanship would bring, I find it hard to believe that anyone saw an election like this coming, and even harder to believe that anyone can predict what comes next. What is important to remember at this point is that we are all being groomed into the future of the American democratic system. Whether we like it or not, it is law students like us who will eventually become the people that are in power. I find it difficult to imagine a world where my classmates are my president, but I am glad they will be in Torts with me later.
I am excited and frightened by the idea that we do not know what comes next. Give yourself time to celebrate, grieve, protest, or do whatever else you need to do to process these results. Once you have taken the time to feel what you need to feel, get up and get moving. Being in law school is probably the most important thing that is going on in any of our lives right now.
Whether we are happy with the results and want to maintain the current policy, or we are furious and want to make a change, nothing is done without action, and education is going to be the most efficient route. Our knowledge of the law is what empowers us to make a change. In the wake of the election, I want you to remember that no matter who you voted for, your voice mattered then and it still matters now. It was not happenstance that gave us our president-elect, and it will not be complacency that determines our next election. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “you must be the change you wish to see in the world.” We are at the heart of our nation’s capital, just a few doors down from the White House, in a school named after our very first president, and I cannot think of a better place to get started.
