10 Beautiful Political Moments That Made Me Cry

It might surprise some of my internet friends (and maybe some from RL) that I am a person who cries. A lot. I tear up at weddings and proposals and tributes. I cry over books and movies and TV commercials and songs. When I read about pets who need adopting. The crowning of Miss America. The Run for the Roses. Election Night, win or lose. I cry at funerals and disasters and tragedies. I wept for days after the Mother Emanual massacre, watching the Katrina rescues, and when Otto Warmbier came home. I am that girl.

Here are 10 beautiful political moments that made me cry:

1. When President Obama said, “To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.”
2. When I woke up and learned that President Clinton was on a plane to North Korea to rescue those girls.
3. When Wendy Davis filibustered SB-5 for almost 11 hours, and when the Republican Chair shut her down, the crowd in gallery cheered for 15 solid minutes, so loudly they drowned out his attempts to call for a vote until after midnight. The vote was nullified, and women’s right to choose was preserved until the next legislative session.
4. After the Obergefell decision when a weeping Paul Katami said, “Today is the day that I finally get to look at the man that I love and say, will you please marry me.”
5. Watching every single House Democrat line up to sign the discharge petition to open the government in 2013.
6. When the University of Alabama tried (and failed) to integrate the sorority system and the students took to the streets for days in protest AND FIXED IT.
7. When Hunter Biden spoke at his brother’s funeral and said, “I’ll always mourn the loss of my mother, but if my dad hadn’t married Jill, we wouldn’t have Ashley.”
8. When Nikki Haley used 10 pens to sign the bill to remove the Confederate flag from the Capitol grounds, 9 for the families of the victims, and a tenth for David Beasley, who gave up his governorship trying to do the same thing 17 years earlier.
9. When John Lewis sat down on the House floor to demand a vote on on the gun control bill and over 100 Democrats joined him, daring Paul Ryan to remove the (ceremonial) mace or have them forcibly removed. He did not dare.
10. When the Obamas left the White House for the last time on a military helicopter, and Joe Biden walked over to Union Station to catch a train back to Delaware.

And yes, I was weeping when I wrote this piece.

Three More:

11. When Trump told Ilhan Omar to “Go back to where you came from,” then she flew home to Minneapolis, and people from all over the state came to the airport and chanted “Welcome home Ilhan” when she got off the plane.

12. When lawyers across the country dropped everything and drove to the nearest airport to help people stranded by Trump’s Muslim ban.

13. When Mayor Pete and Amy Klobuchar dropped out to endorse Joe Biden, and prominent Democrats from all over flew to Texas to support him on the eve of Super Tuesday.