Election Day 2016’s anniversary is here, and 2017’s version had positives

Both 2016 and 2017 have had momentous election days, and it’s time to take a minute and reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going.

Around the Internet, there are lots of takes about how the world has changed since last year’s election night. (Or memes, if you prefer. We certainly don’t mind them.) Last year, on a Wednesday after an election in the United States, yours truly wrote about some positives that happened in the 2016 election.

And, after a year that’s seen Culturess contributors write about Trump-free politics, the Women’s March, women leaving Twitter for a day to support Rose McGowan (and other women using the opportunity to support each other) and a lot of political comedy because we still like to laugh, it’s only fitting to talk about where we are on this anniversary.

Like many on Twitter (here’s just one example of discussing it) you might be feeling a little, or a lot, overwhelmed today, and there’s no shame in it, or any day, really. It’s been the kind of year where the news is relentless and often breaks late at night, ruining relaxation time. It’s been the kind of year where you may have looked around and realized that something has fundamentally shifted in a way that leaves you feeling disoriented.

But that doesn’t mean things cannot shift back — or even shift in the other direction.

It feels fitting to repeat that you do not have to be relentlessly positive, even though we just said about three sentences ago that it’s okay to have negative feelings.

But, in the spirit of trying to proceed, here are some positive things from the coverage of state elections last night. NPR has a list of all the history made last night in terms of elected candidates. Danica Roem might be the name everyone knows today, but there are a lot of other firsts to celebrate.

Writing for the MaddowBlog, Steve Benen says, “If Election Day 2016 seemed like a step backwards for America’s embrace of diversity, yesterday was clearly the opposite.” Maybe that wasn’t the intention of all the candidates that ran and won. It doesn’t seem like it was for Roem — that above-linked Washington Post article says that she entered the race for a simple reason: local infrastructure. (Writer Parker Molloy has a pretty good read on that election in thread form on Twitter.)

But things are starting to be noticed and seen.

In this moment, it feels like Hillary Clinton has a good way of putting it:

“As we celebrate, let’s also remember the work ahead.”

Next: 20 Democrats who could run for president in 2020

So here we are, taking a moment to be pleased, and then, we’re going to continue looking at the world through the eyes of passionate fans.