A New Hope. No, Seriously.

Today, the morning after Barack Obama’s 2016 DNC speech, I awoke feeling genuinely hopeful for the future of our democracy. I know a bunch of y’all did too. That’s what Barack’ll do to a motherfucker.

Then my heart sank just an inch or two when I remembered a brief conversation I had with a friend yesterday who asked advice on how to respond to people who say Hillary is completely corrupt. I gave her my usual defense of Hillary, but when she kept questioning me, I eventually admitted, “ok, maybe Hillary is on the take. Even though there is no proof, I still can’t prove her innocence. But she is trying, dammit. She is trying to be a leader under incredible scrutiny. She has made mistakes. I would have made way, way, way more mistakes by now if I were her.” And even though I disagree with (a very small number of) her policy positions, I am going to offer Hillary Clinton all the sympathy and love that I can muster.

This argument is portable too. Police organizations across the country that inadvertently created a culture of aggression towards young black people? They are trying. They need our sympathy. And of course we will give our sympathy to any problems related to the movements that have come out of those same young black people. Obama? He gets all the sympathy and love in the world. Debbie Wasserman Shultz? She plainly screwed up, and she still gets my love (although she gets more love now that she has been suitably thrown from grace). Even Donald. That poor, poor man. Throw some love at him. Keep him the hell out of my government, but throw some love at him. He is trying. We are all just trying to…what are we trying to do again?…get through this thing called life?

So I will to try to back off of apologizing for Hillary. I am, of course, a self proclaimed Clinton apologist, but hopefully I will practice less frequently. Because she doesn’t need our redress. She needs our love and admiration, and sympathy for her faults (and our contributions and help with her campaign). And to all the rest of them, same thing, right on down to those dumb Oakland cops and their foolish sex scandal. Right on down to that stupid BART conductor who refused to hold the door for me. Love ’em all. Support ’em all. They are doing their best. Let’s do whatever we can to help them do their best.

Give ’em love, y’all.