2016

#2016 features one of my earliest bow ties, from my wedding, but I figured I would go with this pic and its vibes. Salmon shorts, the button down with rolled sleeves.

Side note: I started writing this before I wrote my MLK day post, but I ended up both along similar lines. I hope that’s a good sign.

I still enjoy sporting this look sometimes. The more casual version of what I wear to work, dressed down for fun. By 2016, I was generally dressing better than I had in the two decades or so prior to meeting my wife. I kind of miss the days when that was one of my bigger worries. 2026 undoubtably holds a lot of wonderful things in store as #BabyWithBowtie continues to grow and Ashley and I face new opportunities.

But this photo also represents the time before things truly changed, at least for me. A time before our nation’s most divisive president would first take office and expose the fragility of our democracy and the extremely thin veneer of civility that covered up racism, transphobia, and bigotry, at least to anyone who wasn’t really paying attention – for example, me. 2016 was probably the beginning of what led to my crisis of faith in 2020-21, as I watched so many people I thought I knew who suddenly felt way more comfortable turning on their fellow humans. Of course, this was helped by electing a leader who dehumanized anyone who wasn’t a rich white man, so it didn’t FEEL like hatred against human beings…unless you thought about it for more than a few seconds. In 2016, I had more faith in people (especially those who most loudly claimed to be Christian) to actually do that thinking. That faith is long gone.

Still, the lesson has never been that Christianity is actually an evil religion or that its weaponization against non-white men is a tenet of the faith. Instead, though Christianity touts itself as a peaceful religion, I have never been more ready to fight anyone who tries to eisegesis their way into oppressing others with it. Calling out AmeriJesus worshippers and megachurch cultists is the 2026 social media equivalent of flipping tables (I’m writing this a few days after protestors interrupted a church service because the pastor - the supposed spiritual leader - was found to be an ICE supervisor - that’s the 2026 PHYSICAL equivalent of flipping tables).

Similarly, and similar to what I felt in 2016, I disagree that the government is only out to control people. 2016 was the year it became more apparent than ever that the party who claimed to want small government had never truly felt that way - they just wanted small government for the richest white men who profit from that arrangement, and to sell that as a dream (an impossible one, but a dream nonetheless) to everyone else. The average voter who wanted small government was being sold a bill of goods, and they and everyone else were suffering for it.

In the 10 years since this picture, we have not done enough to show how government truly CAN help people if you put the right public servants in office (instead of career politicians of either party) and people can come together to support each other and lift each other up. That only really works if we acknowledge how our differences have shaped us - and our history - as we go into the future (read: color blindness doesn’t work). We see glimpses of those true public servants every now and then (see: Zohran Mamdani securing free childcare for NYCers and still taking the time to acknowledge that while he is anti-Netanyahu and anti-genocide, he will not stand for antisemitism or supporting Hamas), but we get pit against them by the establishment (Republican and, more disappointingly, Democrat) and it stops us from preventing the real enemies of democracy from taking over the Oval Office.

Back in 2016 I didn’t know what weaponized incompetence was (at an interpersonal level or a political level), and I certainly didn’t know how far we could fall as a nation in a year’s time. Sometimes I long for that innocence, but just like the myth of American exceptionalism or greatness, it was simply something behind which I could hide.

No hiding anymore. 2016 was also the last time “both sides-ing” was acceptable. The aforementioned veneer fell off long ago and democracy is near the point of shattering. 2026 may be the new 2016, but we can’t afford to make those mistakes again, even though we already have this year. Supposedly the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, but we need to start taking a stronger stance in shaping it, because right now the wrong leaders are in place to do that. 2026 ought to be the year we change that and vote real public servants into office and excise the hate with which MAGA has infested America since 2016.

Midterms are coming up, and the party who currently is in charge of all three branches of government is going to do their best to prevent you from voting. Yes, you. I can say that because they don’t care who you are. If you are a rich white man, you might be spared, but that’s where the safety net stops. They’re going to try and pass voter ID laws (even though you already need ID to register so there’s no reason to require it on voting day when there are already election monitors and you have to sign next to where your name is/your signature is) and then restrict you from getting the necessary ID. They’ll try to take away mail-in voting and strip the US Postal Service and then claim it’s not safe (even though it was for decades) (and even though it screws over active military folks and so many others). They’ll try to intimidate you. They’ll do all this and more, claiming it’s to clamp down on voter fraud (even though for the past ten years and beyond, they keep investigating and barely finding anything, and when they do it’s more often perpetrated by Republicans).

We need to keep watch for these measures and let our Congressional Representatives and Senators know that we don’t want them, if we truly care about our own voting rights. Today itself, check your voting registration. And in November vote for real public servants, which right now means voting against Republicans and may mean primary-ing some Democrats.

Let’s not make 2026 the new 2016. Let’s do better.