Julia Glass

 Because Harris gives me so much to look forward to

Dear Kamala (if I may),

When you become our president, I look forward to so many things. 

First, I relish the thought of hearing your laughter—which I love—deployed often: in joy and sympathy, in fellowship, in the face of challenges requiring a bulletproof sense of humor. . . and sometimes in well-deserved mockery. There is no wisdom without wit, a truth of which certain candidates (who do not even know how to laugh) are clueless.

I look forward to watching you be welcomed, with relief and wonder, by longtime allies the world over who have forgiven our country time and again for acts of stupidity, hypocrisy, and unjustified violence.

I look forward (do I ever!) to watching you put all the smug, conniving, bigoted, and bullying sycophants of the would-be dictator in their petty place. I believe you can do so effectively and artfully, though it won’t be easy.

I look forward to having a leader who will attack the urgent crisis of consumer gluttony and what it’s done—what we’ve done—to the world we live in. You’ll put the right people on that critical job.

I look forward to joining citizens of other nations who haven’t taken this long to put a woman in charge. 

Not incidentally, I look forward to your taking the government’s hands off my body.

But what I look forward to most of all is hearing you call out the countless inequalities and forms of repression that, in recent years, have set down ever deeper roots across the country. That kind of change requires force of will and sleight of hand; I know you’ll try hard, and I believe you’ll make progress. 

You will appoint judges who are deliberators, not disciples. Some see your prosecutorial background as having taught you in ruthlessness, but the judicial system, like justice itself, admits and sometimes even rejoices in mercy. 

And because I trust that you believe in mercy, I hope that you will stop arming nations engaged in the wholesale slaughter of ordinary citizens without any end in sight. There is a difference between being an ally and being an accomplice, between using one's superpower to strong-arm a truce and placing a gun in the hands of a tyrant. I sense that in your heart you see that difference, and I wish you the courage to do the right thing.

I’m buckling up for the roller-coaster ride to Election Day, a day on which I will vote for justice and mercy and peace. That’s my American dream.

With eyes on a brighter horizon,

Julia Glass

Julia Glass is a National Book Award-winning author of, most recently, Three Junes and Vigil Harbor. She teaches in the MFA program at Emerson College.