I knew I was wound up as tight as a damn drum before a colleague sent me the link to the Hillary Clinton campaign’s hero’s journey video, “The Story of Us.” But it wasn’t until I watched the video, a masterpiece of heartstring-yanking highlights from Clinton’s campaign, through which I sniffled and sobbed and had to pause more than once to catch my breath, that I realized just how totally effing stressed out I’ve been. Over the past weeks and months, this grotesque nightmare election has been holding all of us in its clammy grip. That grip has been almost imperceptibly tightening around our hearts, a ball of anxiety beneath the breastbone that’s always there.
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I thought the hand would loosen its clench after I voted this morning — nope, still there: This day can’t end fast enough. When do the polls close? When will we know about Florida, Virginia, Nevada? What if he doesn’t concede? What if it’s like 2000 where we woke up on Wednesday and the long national nightmare was far from over? If you, like me, are about to explode from anticipation and anxiety and a deep desire for this all to be over already, I direct you to “The Story of Us.”
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Yes, it’s a manipulative bit of get-out-the-vote catnip for Clinton’s supporters, but it’s also a chronicle of how totally incredible this election has been. We’ve got Clinton announcing her candidacy, her team hugging at HQ when same-sex marriage was made legal, Michelle Obama proclaiming, “When they go low, we go high,” Clinton radiant in that white suit at the DNC — her team exulting on the plane when they found out she won the nomination — and on and on, all against a swelling soundtrack that, yes, of course, culminates in Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song.” It’s exactly what you need today, even if you think you can’t bear another campaign ad. It will make even the most hardened cynic weep big, heaving sobs, and it turns out big, heaving sobs are exactly what one needs when one has been walking around terrified about the decline of Western civilization for months.
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