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If you're feeling simultaneously hopeful and discouraged while waiting for election results to trickle in [3], Van Jones is right there with you. On election night [4], the CNN host summed up the dichotomy of emotions that many Democrats are grappling with right now and broke down how the closeness of the presidential race means the "moral victory" many voters had hoped for is null and void.
"The fact that it's this close, it hurts. It just hurts."
"I think a lot of Democrats are hurt tonight," Jones began. "There's the moral victory and there's the political victory, and they're not the same thing." Although he noted that Joe Biden may wind up winning the election, the fact that it wasn't a landslide victory on Nov. 3 is especially unsettling for those who've been harmed by Donald Trump's policies and rhetoric the past four years. "I think for people who saw babies being snatched away from their mothers at the border, for people who are sending their kids into schools where the N-word is now being used against them, for people who have seen this wave of intolerance, they wanted a moral victory tonight," Jones said. "We wanted to see a repudiation of this direction for the country, and the fact that it's this close, it hurts. It just hurts."
Jones went on to reiterate that a political victory for Biden is within reach, mentioning a handful of states that have since been declared in his favour, including Wisconsin and Arizona. As of the writing of this article, decisive states like Pennsylvania and Georgia have still not officially been called for either candidate. Regardless of how long said tallying may take [5], we suggest avoiding stress-scrolling through Twitter, only trusting reliable sources for updates (like the Associated Press, for example), and reading up on what else you can do while waiting for the final results to be announced [6].
