It is easy to relate this election to when Umbridge was the headmaster of Hogwarts. Umbridge is my most hated character of all time. She’s mean, she lies, she doesn’t care about fairness. And now it feels like Umbridge is in the White House, and my fellow Americans put her (him) there. My instinct is to say “how dumb are we?!?!” but I know that this story is much more complicated.
The hardest thing for me is that it could have been such a celebration. I know that a lot of people dislike Hillary, but I don’t. In fact, I love her. I see her as a role model, which is why I’ve been volunteering for her campaign since this summer. So it’s not just that we’ve elected an orange, intolerant, inexperienced Umbridge. It’s that we’ve passed up the chance to have a qualified, strong, poised leader who just happens to be female.
This election feels so personal. It is so easy to judge others: for voting absentee in non-swing states, for not volunteering, for voting for Johnson or Stein, for not trying to convince an elderly uncle to vote blue. I feel myself falling into this trap. But then I remember that that’s the trap Trump has set. He wants us to turn against each other, to be motivated by anger. And we cannot give in. Instead, we should band together and find a way to stand up to Umbridge. Donate to Planned Parenthood. Volunteer for pro-bono lawyers who will defend undocumented immigrants. Start working ahead towards making congress blue in two short years.
Eventually he, too, will be thrown to the Centaurs (at least metaphorically).
