Nearly one year later, when I visited Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office on behalf of an organization I was working for, I found a packet of crumpled-up American flag stickers in the trash can. I pulled them out quietly, not wanting her staff to see me, and put them in my backpack. I felt sad but thought I would take them to my brother’s kids when I saw them again. I knew they would appreciate them. 

I was never happier about a Democratic victory than when Obama won in 2008. Blacks, whites, young and old, women and men rejoiced together, dancing in the streets to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” everyone feeling joy, and more importantly, hope. The same was true of my family—I can still remember how excited my mom was to vote for him. After eight years of George W. Bush, of the Iraq War, of repeated job losses, and growing income inequality leading to the financial crisis of 2007, we all thought Obama would return the country’s priorities to jobs for the middle and working class.  

But it didn’t turn out that way. As much as anything, he was a Democratic technocrat. Still, in 2016, when Trump ran against Clinton, I was one of those people who laid in bed for three days when the Democrats lost. By then, however, I was an outlier in my family, who had already made the shift to Trump—as had millions of others in Missouri, a former bellwether state that grew redder with every election. For the longest time, I couldn’t understand why.

In 2019, I decided to move to San Francisco, a place where you’re unlikely to hear anything good said about Trump. After that, I got married to a man who worked in the Bay Area, and my circle of acquaintances was virtually all Democrats.