But now there was a feeling of a free fall, every man for himself. People had futures to worry about—jobs—and political affiliations would matter.
John stood to address the packed room of staffers and interns to give them a pep talk. “We’re seeing a lot of people in meltdown mode,” he said. He was a young guy with a neat appearance and jet-black hair. “Look, the president is counting on us to do this. So let’s do this. This is our thing. It’s why we’re here. It might just be a little weirder today…”
He told them if the mail was getting to them, they should go take a walk. He told them to keep the TV off. “It’s not helpful. It’s not helpful to say, if this person would have run or did this or that. It’s not helpful.
“Look, we are all processing this.”
People leaned their heads away from the rows of screens to listen. There were tissues. People were crying. Extra office chairs had been rolled in, along with donuts, juice, power bars, and when John finished his pep talk, the staffers and interns went back to reading, and talking, and reading, and trying to console one another.
“We just have to go into duty versus feeling.”
“Here’s one from a fourteen-year-old girl. ‘Dear Mr. President, Please help me understand what to do.’ ”
“Here’s two women who got married four years ago and are going to have a baby this week and are terrified to bring a baby into the world now.”
“Last night we were watching, and we were like, ‘Fine, fine, whoa. Whoa!’ We didn’t talk at all. At the end someone was like, ‘What are we going to tell our letter writers? What are we going to do with the mail tomorrow?’ And we all just lost it.”
“I was like, ‘I need to go see the mail.’ ”
“It gives you purpose. It all feels hopeless, but this is something proactive.”
“It’s that sense of responsibility, that we still need to be there for the people who want to reach out to the president.”
“I don’t know what we’re going to tell all these people. But we’re going to have to tell them something….”
“I’m seeing fear. Mostly fear.”
“I haven’t seen anybody saying, ‘I’m happy.’ ”
“It was about twenty of us. A bottle of wine. We cleared out so much vodka.”
“It’s not even about the results. It’s looking at what used to be.”
“It’s looking at what we see as progress and to have it, in one day, all of a sudden you’re saying, Is this even real, or will it still exist?”
* * *
—
People had questions for John; they were getting confused about how to proceed. Email was the same as hard mail: Each post had to be coded. Immigration. Israel. Economy. The codes corresponded with the policy-response letters that the writing team had ready to go and that the algorithms were set to personalize. But on this day staffers had had to come up with all new codes: Election Pro, Election Con, and Legacy.
“So Election Pro is like, ‘Donald Trump is the best, and this is a great day for America,’ ” John told the group. “And then Election Con is going to be like, ‘I’m scared,’ ” he went on. He was standing in the middle of the room, and you could tell he was not used to having to make his voice carry.
“So, like, ‘I don’t know what to do. I have a disability. I’m an LGBT family. I don’t know what’s going on anymore.’ That’s Election Con.
“Then Legacy is going be ‘You know, I was really disappointed about last night; your family is amazing; I think you did great things’—that’s Legacy. Some of these things will be a little vague, and I know it’s going to be hard, but feel free to ask questions as we’re going through this, and let’s try to make sure you’re being as specific as possible.”
“What about people talking about election recounts and fraud and rigging?” one intern asked.
“Election fraud? Just close those out—”
“What about people writing before the results were out?” asked another. “Like people writing in to say, ‘I’m looking forward to President Clinton,’ but it’s clearly obvious that that’s…not.”
“Yeah. We can close those. We can close those out.”
“What if they’re saying, ‘I’m nervous about the election. I don’t know what I’ll do’?”
“Election Con.”
“ ‘Do we need to call up the military?’ ”
“Election Con.”
“ ‘My wife is undocumented; I have three children; I’ve never been so scared in my life.’ ”
“Election Con.”
“ ‘I’m disabled; I have seizures. Will I still have healthcare?’ ”
“Election Con.”
“ ‘Is he going to void my marriage? Am I going to still be with the person I love?’ ”
Con. Con. Con.
The writing team would have to figure out a response to the election email later that day. What, exactly, should Obama say to all these people?
Three elderly women in pastel blouses came barging in, asking to turn on the TV. “Are you watching Hillary’s concession speech?” one of them asked.
“I wasn’t sure where you’re from?” an OPC staffer said politely.
“FLOTUS! We’re volunteers from FLOTUS! Can we watch the speech?”
But the TV wasn’t on. Perhaps the polite thing to do was to turn it on. Sure, they would turn it on. But did they have to? There was hemming and hawing, and they put the TV on with the sound down while Wolf Blitzer waited for Clinton and the crawl beneath brought updated margins from Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and Michigan, and most of the people in the email room went back to their screens, to the email and America in meltdown mode.
From: Mr. Martin A. Gleason
Submitted: 11/9/2016 8:07 AM EST
Address: Chicago, Illinois
Message:
Mr. President—I am sorry I let you down.
I know I could only vote once, and that I could not call every undecided voter, or fund every down ballot Democrat. Where I, and every other college educated white male who voted for you in ’08 and ’12[,] failed you, is in our inability or unwillingness to address the structural racism that has given birth to President-Elect Trump.
I have not spoken up—to family, friends, and neighbors—about racism.
I have not fought hard enough for my fellow Americans.
I have not called out, or called in, other white people enough.
In order for the country to heal, well meaning whites like me need to “take the gun away” from white supremacists. Not only did we literally give white supremacists the gun (and the bomb), we also gutted the safety net that you t[ri]ed to repair.
I am sorry. We let you down.
When you leave office, and return to civilian life, I will join you in whatever task you undertake. I will do whatever it takes to keep your legacy intact.
With love and respect,
Martin Gleason
* * *
—
At the end of the day, Fiona had to pick the 10LADs from the email that had come flying in, and a guy on the writing team who sat not far from Kolbie’s office was in charge of composing the response to America in meltdown mode.
“I haven’t gotten very far,” he said, sitting in front of a blank screen. He didn’t want me to use his name. He had been up all night, at his parents’ house in Ohio, where he’d been knocking on doors to get out the vote, and then he flew back to work, and he had never expected to have to write a letter like this.
“Personally, the worst thing is that it feels like a rebuke of the connection we’re trying to make between the president and the people,” he said. “Like, if our responsibility in this office is to connect the president to the people, I’m asking myself, ‘Did we fail?’ ”
“And I don’t understand it, because he’s read more mail than any president in history,” he said. “He seems more connected to the people than any president in history.”
I felt compelled to remind him that Obama hadn’t been running for reelection. Clinton was the one who had lost.
“The bargaining stage of grief,” he mumbled.
Some hours later, he would show me the letter he had composed on behalf of President Obama to America in meltdown mode.
Thank you for writing. I understand the feelings of uncertainty many Americans have had lately. But one thing I am certain of is that America remains the greatest nation on earth. What sets us apart is not simply our economic and military power, but also the principles upon which our Union was founded: pluralism and openness, the rule of law, civil liberties, and the self-evident truth—expanded with each generation—that we are all created equal.
One election does not change who we are as a people. The America I know is clear-eyed and big-hearted—full of courage and ingenuity. Although politics can significantly affect our lives, our success has always been rooted in the willingness of our people to look out for one another and help each other through tough times. More than my Presidency, or any Presidency, it is the optimism and hard work of people like you that have changed our country for the better and that will continue to give us the strength we need to persevere.
Progress doesn’t come easily, and it hasn’t always followed a straight line, but I firmly believe that history ultimately moves in the direction of justice, prosperity, freedom, and inclusion—not because it is inevitable, but because people like you speak out and hold our country accountable to our highest ideals. That’s why I hope you continue to stay engaged. And I want you to know Michelle and I will be right there with you.
Again, thank you for writing. Whatever challenges we may face, there is no greater form of patriotism than the belief that America is not yet finished and a brighter future lies ahead.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
* * *
—
I could hear Yena outside in the hall, laughing and joking with some other people on the writing team; the discrepancy was palpable. Yena was the kind of person you would want at your mother’s funeral. She was trying to put a positive spin on the situation.
“Isn’t it so cool?” she was saying. “I think we have a real opportunity to hone in on the president’s message. But more than that, like, this is friggin’ America. Which is like, what an opportunity. Like, what an honor. You know what I mean? Like, woo! What an honor! Like, what? I lived my life!”
She told me about her work helping Fiona assemble the transition materials, said she was determined to feel optimistic about the new team continuing their work on behalf of letter writers.
“It’s like, the Obama administration did all this to hear people’s stories,” Yena said. “How could they possibly not meet us and grow it further?”
I asked her what she thought she’d do after she left this place. She said she was applying to grad school; she wanted to learn about hostage negotiations. It was because of her time in OPC. That letter she told me about when I first met her, about the mother and the kidnapped son—it had changed her. Lacey had had a similar awakening; she was planning to forge a career working with veterans. Ever since the letter from Ashley about her dad and the guns and the shooting. Kolbie wasn’t sure what she’d do next. Something with language, something with children and the power of language. Fiona said she wanted to focus on being married for a while.
I stopped by Fiona’s office to see how she was coming with the 10LADs. She was already on the couch with her choices on her lap. “I had some rice pudding,” she said, managing a smile. The emails had been printed, and she was flipping through the pages considering the sequence. “I think it will hit him like it hit us, a pile of voices that don’t follow a tight narrative.” She spoke quietly as she sorted, mostly to herself. “People concerned for others,” she said, holding a few out. “People concerned for themselves,” she said about another group, and when she was finished, she sat up straight.
“Okay, so this is the first one,” she said, showing it to me. The writer was cheering Trump’s victory. He recommended a fire into which Obama could put all of his executive orders and, together with the rest of the ruinous liberals, watch them burn.
“It’s an introduction, because it sort of feels like the day began,” Fiona said, and I could tell she had no interest in defending her choice.
“And then I like the personal nature of this one for the second,” she said, going through her choices with the satisfaction of an author reading her final draft. “She’s married to someone who voted differently from her. But they will continue to be a family. I think it’s nice to have something so passionate and uplifting closer to the front.
“Then this is one where I felt it was moving; he isn’t sharing his own personal stake; he’s saying this is what I hope you’ll do with the power you hold right now for others.
“Then behind him this is someone who is in dire financial straits. I felt that was someone whose voice really matters right now.
“Then this is someone with disabilities, a community that has self-identified as vulnerable.
“Then this one is incredible. What a guy. ‘I will join you in whatever task you undertake.’
“Then this is a Trump supporter who is making his case….Obviously there are difficult parts of this. But he is someone who volunteers, and he wants to share who he is and why he wanted this outcome. And he also is really frustrated by the presence of immigrants in the U.S.
“Behind him, this is someone who works on tech that he thinks could be dangerous.
“Then a deferred action recipient.
“Then I’ll end with this. Because I think so many people are thinking, What do we tell our daughters today?”
She gathered the letters. She checked her phone. She jiggled the lid on the glass water bottle that always accompanied her. “So I’m going to hand them off. And they’ll get scanned and sent around.”
* * *
—
Some weeks later, Fiona got a call from Rob Porter, the person who had been hired to become White House staff secretary for President-Elect Donald Trump. He wanted a meeting, so Fiona went. He asked about the mailroom, how it worked, and Fiona told him about the transition materials, the binders, and she did her best to summarize. “Ten letters a day,” she said, as if that would simply be the normal order of business. The president would be expected to read his mail and answer it. Rob took notes. The meeting was maybe twenty minutes. He said someone would be getting back to her for more information.
No one did.
From: james
Submitted: 11/9/2016 12:12 PM EST
Start packing! Get ready to watch a big bonfire, maybe in the vegetable garden, where Trump will burn the AFA and most of your executive orders. You can watch it from your new residence with all the other liberals who have been trying to destroy the country.
From: Alessandra Shurina
Submitted: 11/9/2016 8:08 AM EST
Address: Tallahassee, Floria
President Obama—
My heart is broken this morning. It is so, seemingly irreparably broken. I am trying hard not to wallow in the hurt that I feel and instead trying to channel my outrage in grief into something productive. I have a five month old daughter and this is not the world I want her to grow up in—please tell me there is something I can do to help remedy this situation? To lessen the blow? How can I get involved? What do you recommend that I do to ensure that at the VERY most we only have four years of a fascist demagogue as president? I’m willing to devote my life to volunteering for a cause or a candidate with the promise of defeating not only Tr
ump but the hateful principles that he was elected on. This has been a wake up call for me. I can’t just vote. I must DO. Please, President Obama tell me, what do I do?
From: Amanda Bott
Submitted: 11/9/2016 2:29 AM EST
Address: Rochester, Washington
November 8, 2016
Dear President Obama,
Eight years ago on election night I wrote a letter to my unborn children telling them how proud I was to be one of the millions of Americans who voted for you. On that night I cried tears of joy and pride and happiness. Tonight I’m crying tears of sorrow. I’m crying for my beautiful country with its beautiful ideals. I can’t see a way through four years of a hatemonger in the oval office. For the first time in my life I am terrified for my country. Terrified. I have two beautiful daughters. I have a two year old and a five year old and they deserve to have a future and I’m honestly and genuinely scared that there may not be a future with this man in office. He has the ability to deploy nuclear weapons and he has said he would use them.
How did we fall so far? How did this happen? Eight years ago we voted for hope and tonight we voted for hate. How is that possible? Eight years ago I voted for you to be my leader. I’m asking you to lead me now. Please Mr. President, tell us what we can do as a nation now? Tell me what to do as a citizen and a mother. Now that this person is Commander in Chief of the largest, most powerful military on earth what can I do? Do I have to write letters to world leaders apologizing and explaining that we really don’t want a nuclear holocaust? Should I write to the heads of state of every nation on earth and apologize for the next four years and beg them to realize that this hatemonger does not speak for us? But, doesn’t he?
We elected him. We elected him to speak for us. We heard the hate and prejudice and anger and bigotry. We saw him mock the handicapped and prisoners of war and gold star families—things both republicans and democrats alike always treated as sacred, and yet we voted for him. God help us we voted for him. God help us all.
To Obama Page 26