The Optimism of Leslie Knope

It started just after 2 am on November 9th, 2016. Reality-star Donald Trump had just become President-Elect Donald Trump, and after an hour of refreshing Twitter without stopping, I knew I needed to try and get some sleep.

I closed my eyes, but all I could hear was the news on loop. So, I grabbed my phone, opened Netflix, and turned on Parks and Rec.

To be clear, I’ve watched and loved Parks and Rec from the beginning. My admiration of both Amy Poehler and Mike Schur are well-documented and, should either of them see this, wholly respectful and in no way should be seen as “too much,” “kind of weird,” or “hey, didn’t you cry that one time you met Amy Poehler?” So no, this wasn’t the first time I’d rewatched the show. It was, however, the first of many times I would return to the show at a time like that.

We thought we knew what we were in for when Trump was elected.

We didn’t know anything.

Some things we could have predicted (the hate, the Constitutional violations, the xenophobia, the racist wall he’s both failed to build and failed to have Mexico pay for), but some (like the recent news of forced sterilizations in I.C.E. detention centers) were too heinous even to imagine.

As far as the rest of the world goes, we are still a relatively young country. But we are a country that began as a theft of land and was built with the labor of men and women who were enslaved, forced to work, and never truly made free. We have doled out rights slowly and unevenly; but taken them back quickly, if just as unevenly.

We are a Democratic Republic, but while we’ve expanded the right to vote over the years, we’ve also created an intricate system of loopholes that allow us to never truly let all eligible voters cast a ballot.

A Republic, if you can catch it.

So, because of this, we are a young nation that has both created and inherited a lot of pain, heartache, and inequity.

Yet, despite all of this — I love her. Truly. I like to say I love this country the way Renee Zellweger loved Jerry Maguire: for the country it wants to be, and the country it almost is.

Because we are also a country of magic and beauty. We’re not perfect, and I will admit that right now, as I write these words, I am even having a hard time believing them myself.

But we have done magical things. The American Revolution itself came from our audacity to believe that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are “unalienable rights.” We put men and women in the air, first in a plane and then into space. The lightbulb, the cell phone, and the potato chip were all created here. We gave the world Kelly Clarkson! So yes, we’ve done big and magical things.

We will do big and magical things again.

This moment, however, does not feel magical to many of us. It just feels big — heavy. So, we look for ways to change that. We want to love this country. We want this country to love us back.

It’s been exhausting — this day, these years, this time — and so we look for things to comfort us.

I put on Parks and Rec in the earliest hours of Trump’s presidency, and many times since then. I put it on in the background while trying to somehow balance a full-time job and a full grad school class load. It was on when I filed the 501c3 paperwork for We’re the People. It was on during an emotional trip to D.C., switching between The Master Plan (the most important Parks and Rec episode) and the Kavanaugh hearings.

It’s not just that the jokes are solid, and the writing is perfect (though they are, and it is), but there’s another reason I return to Pawnee: Leslie Knope.

On our best days, it’s hard to make people feel optimistic about the government. And these are not our best days. Yet, we strive for optimism regardless. We search for the best moments, no matter how small, because — frankly — why would anyone even bother voting if they didn’t believe in a better tomorrow?

Voting requires optimism.

Optimism requires Leslie Knope. Someone who loves their country so much that the only thing they could ever possibly do is jump in with both feet. Someone who hears boos in a town hall as people just caring loudly. Someone who gets her heart broken by the place she loves and the people she serves, but she gets up anyway. She fights on. She fights for those same people that break her heart.

For Leslie Knope, servitude is an honor and, while the reward isn’t always obvious, it doesn’t make it any less real.

Friday night I, again, turned on Parks and Rec. The first night in a country without Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A night we knew was coming and yet were all still so surprised by. I turned it on because it was the only thing stopping me from falling into a spiral of hate-refreshing Twitter. I turned it on because I just needed to get a couple hours of sleep.

I turned it back on again the next morning. While I made calls, sent emails and texts, and continued the work of getting out the vote. I turned it on because I just needed to remember that we’re going to be ok.

And we are. We’re going to be okay. This moment is temporary. We have lows so we can have highs. So, turn on Parks and Rec, find a down-ballot race you want to support, check your voter registration, and commit the following to memory:

“In times of stress or moments of transition, sometimes it can feel like the whole world is closing in on you. When that happens, you should close your eyes, take a deep breath, listen to the people that love you when they give you advice, and remember what really matters.”