By Amanda Knox

A world away, I still heard the stories. My friends wrote me letters. January to June, my childhood best friend was deep in Hillary Clinton’s primary campaign, extolling her virtues to folks who still owned a home phone. Other friends were all about Obama. After years of economic difficulty and military involvement abroad, Obama was a vision of hope and change, the vehicle for progressivism. Not to mention, Obama was also the most eloquent rhetorician and charismatic public speaker EVER, hadn’t a grey hair on his head, and upon earning the Democratic nomination, was the first black man to ever run for president. People were discussing politics over family dinners, in the hallways between class, over rounds of beer pong. They were going on marches and making art. On social media, they cried out “Yes We Can!” and on November 4th, 2008, my friends were dancing in the streets along with the rest of them.

Somehow, I don’t see that happening—especially the dancing in the streets—this November 8th. This presidential election cycle has felt less like a party, and more like a horror show that you can’t look away from. Hillary Clinton is struggling, as always, against the vague but prevailing perception that she offers nothing more than a reinforcement of the dysfunctional, uninspiring, and patronizing status quo. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has succeeded in coming a step away from the most powerful position in the world merely because he is a destabilizing agent. No matter that he is inexperienced, uninformed, and irresponsible (to say the very least). Both candidates seem disturbingly disconnected, in their own ways. Hillary Clinton from the people. Donald Trump from rationality.

I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around what I think about this election, about what it means to me. Unfortunately, the first thing that comes to mind is that this shouldn’t be my first big election. 2008 was exciting and momentous, but I missed out. I was wrongfully imprisoned in Italy. 2012 wasn’t a contest and doesn’t really count. 2016 has been characterized by exasperation and disgust. I feel cheated. In the lull between debates and voting day, I mope and worry, worry and mope.

Except, there’s one thing.

During the last debate, I was reminded of how I learned about abortions—partial birth abortions—in health class at my Catholic high school. We were shown a comic book-like diagram of a “baby” being twisted around in the womb by an “abortionist” who proceeded to “jam scissors into the baby’s skull” and “suck out its brains.” The lesson then concluded with an open discussion of whether or not this was ethical, which, horrified as we 14-year-olds were, wasn’t much of a discussion. Watching the third presidential debate, it was like Donald Trump had taken health class with me, and never looked further into the matter. He didn’t have to.

It’s not the same for women. As soon as we become sexually active, the stakes are real and life-altering. Ignorance about our reproductive health is not an option. Like every woman, I realized that abortion is not as simple as “ripping the baby out of the womb.” In Trump’s world, there is no consideration about the health of the fetus or the mother, or mention that the vast majority of abortions are medically induced before the 20-week-mark, or that surgical late-term abortions are expensive and invasive procedures that both women and medical professionals don’t take lightly. In Trump’s world there’s only black-and-white idealism and the sinister innuendo that anyone can and will get an abortion at any time by any means for any reason—which is simply not true.

In Hillary Clinton’s words,

"The kinds of cases that fall at the end of pregnancy are often the most heartbreaking, painful decisions for families to make. I have met with women who toward the end of their pregnancy get the worst news one could get, that their health is in jeopardy if they continue to carry to term or that something terrible has happened or just been discovered about the pregnancy. …I’ve been to countries where governments either forced women to have abortions, like they used to do in China, or forced women to bear children, like they used to do in Romania. And I can tell you: The government has no business in the decisions that women make with their families in accordance with their faith, with medical advice."

When she said these words in the third debate, Clinton became a champion in my eyes. She demonstrated that while she may not be the obvious and most relatable champion, she’s the champion of nuance, and complexity, and reality. If Obama’s song was a rousing anthem, Clinton’s is a subtle symphony. And Trump, a broken trumpet.

Chris put it another way. “It’s crazy,” he said. “It’ll be an historic moment when Hillary wins. But she doesn’t just have to defeat a man to become the first female President. She has to defeat the Worst Man, the most misogynistic man imaginable.”

I’m feeling less apathetic about this election. It’s not that Clinton has shown herself to be more than just the lesser of two evils. It’s that her impending victory represents the triumph of nuance and poise over prejudice and childishness.

And that’s something I can get excited about.