Pardon the politics, but that Tuesday night was rough. The last time Virginia- — my home state — voted for a Republican presidential candidate had been prior to Obama. And the last time a Republican governor held office in Richmond, I was so young my father had struggled to get me to understand what corruption was.

That’s not to say we haven’t had our moments. For a while we wandered around in swing state limbo, claiming the spotlights of election night coverage as we held the country’s fate in our hands. We’d hem and haw come November, crouched over our ballot bubbles almost in operatic fashion.

But the plot twists always ironed themselves out in the end. We could be fickle and flaky at times—there have been more than a few close calls, sure — but we never failed to pull through. Alexandria, Arlington or Loudon County would pour in just enough ballots to change the momentum. Fairfax County carried the weight by its sheer strength in numbers, until our political demographics eventually became no more flukes than the expectation. We were headed in the right direction.

All of which has made the whiplash of getting jerked backwards through time ache just a bit more. That familiar plotline of close races and eventual, hard-won victories fell short. The predictable script had run its course, pulling itself out from under our feet in what felt like 2016 déjà vu.

In hindsight, I probably could have seen it coming. The pundits and thinktanks had called for a neck-and-neck race in the tea leaves, to say nothing of the vicious sparring over “Beloved” that happened in my very home county. McAuliffe blundered, bumbled, and jabbed at a blond-haired ghost who never quite materialized (his opponent similarly battled “critical race theory” phantoms, but fared slightly better). Over fall break I had returned to the jarring sight of Youngkin signs cropping up across front lawns, splashes of red — and harbingers, perhaps — in a suburbia of Starbucks and Whole Foods that had grown so accustomed to Clintons, Kaines and Northams.

It’s impossible not to feel upset. I am worried about my home state, which has handed over the keys to both its governor’s seat and House of Delegates overnight at a time when many of its most pressing issues — COVID response, criminal justice and climate change — still hang in the balance. And wrapped under the innocuous foils of parental involvement are the same racist impulses that have plagued America for far too long. To ban the study of race is to condone the very sympathies that had made Virginia one of the first slave states 300 years ago. Youngkin threatens to steer Virginia away from racist realities with a censorship campaign entirely of his own making, and just as the state was beginning to scratch the surface of its troublesome legacies. Democracy rests on the cornerstones of empathy; our refusal to even peel back the Band-aids covering our scars proves how far we still are from truly living up to its full name.

None of this is particularly hopeful. But in spite of it all, Tuesday might have also been the closest we’ve come to attaining any semblance of democracy in a long while. The election was free from interference or fraud. More voters turned out at the ballot boxes than ever, even in the wake of tightened voter restrictions across Texas and Arizona. All in all, it was a triumph in the sense that the results came with an uninspiring acceptance of victory and a humdrum acknowledgement of defeat. There were groans and cheers in equal parts, but everything went so smoothly, so inconspicuously, that it juxtaposed the chilling events of just 10 months ago. Tuesday showed us how our transfers of power ought to work, and that government — however unsightly and imperfect — can still function when we choose to uphold its principles with dignity and grace.

Nevertheless, it was also a reflection of ourselves in all our irrationality and unpredictability. We’re difficult to project and perhaps even harder to pinpoint, resisting decade-long demographic trends and eluding the grasp of pollsters and politicians alike. I’ve realized time and again that people often surprise you—for better or worse—when you least expect it. That they are equally capable of performing miracles and letdowns before your eyes, right when you’ve been lulled into complacency. That politics can be messy and beautiful, just like life, which happens to be all that and more.

HANWEN ZHANG is a sophomore in Benjamin Franklin College. His column is titled ‘Thoughtful spot.’ Contact him at hanwen.zhang.hhz3@yale.edu