It is Wednesday, November 8, 2028. Crispy cold weather blanketed most of the United States, from the hills of West Virginia to the valleys of Southern California. In Miami and Houston, it was like someone poured ice-cold water on the ever-bubbling sunshine cities. The wind was demure, rivers sedated, and even the birds chirped with all modesty.

Yesterday’s presidential election results were the first in over ten years that either party contested. At midnight, just as polls closed on the West Coast and the Associated Press made their projections, the winner called the loser and sent a congratulatory message. All TV cameras, podcasts, and radio stations focused on that moment as if the nation’s fate depended on it. In the quiet streets of Alabama, in the chilly streets of New York, exhausted men and women returning from their evening shift listened to the exchange of phone calls between the candidates. The collective exhale for a moment warmed up the surface of the Niagara Falls.

America paused. Conservative and liberal news anchors all breathed a sigh of relief as they reported, each in their own subtle manner, the words that spelled the end of the great American nightmare. Nothing said on any television screen showed whether the station was in a blue state or red state. No commentator cared whether the election result was a blue or red wave. They all saw the first signs of what they hoped would be the first days of America’s resurrection.

The surprise was when the guys at Fox News reported that today, “America picks up its pieces and will spend the next few years putting them all back together.” It came out unscripted with genuine sincerity. He did not look over his shoulders as he said it. It was the same at CNN. The front page of the New York Post had the same headline as the front page of the New York Times. It had never happened before. They all proclaimed a new beginning for America.

It is the same story for the world. Diplomats around the globe went back to the drawing board. Presidents, Prime Ministers, Kings, and Queens had their secretaries fall back to a long-forgotten template as they crafted statements congratulating the newly elected American president. There was no need to sweat – just mundane words of best wishes. These were things that were not possible the day before yesterday.

Not even the historian with the most extraordinary foresight had imagined the transformation in just four years. It was like looking at a landscape after a significant hurricane had passed. The devastation was unfathomable. Rivers of democracy dried up. In some places, they took a different path. Pillars of global order, which had served the world for the last 80 years, were uprooted and placed in other locations. The shifting balance of power went off its fulcrum and altered the equilibrium so swiftly that the following earthquake had aftershocks still rattling.

But it wasn’t just bad things that happened. Great things also happened. The little fights that people who had too much food to eat were indulging in years ago ended. Those demanding Sharia law in Europe teamed up with those demanding an end to gay marriage in America to finally get what they wanted. It was a conservative world where smiles replaced fears, optimism replaced pessimism, and the weak became right while the might became vanquished. In this new world, climate fears vanished, and illegal immigrants learned to stay in their countries to fix them.

The rich kept their profits and happily donated what they wished to the poor. Without government overreaching hands, lakes and rivers cleaned themselves as nature designed them to do. The inordinate mixing of the races came to an absolute stop as every race, creed, and gender accepted their stations in life and lived within their own enclaves. With DEI buried, Indian, Chinese, and Nigerian first-generation students dominated higher education as poor white families in middle America joyfully cheered.

The heavenly landscape had sheep and lions share evergreen gardens where they recited Project 2035. With nuclear weapons hanging over their heads like piñata at a birthday party, everyone sang America the Beautiful. Even over-pampered kids behaved as parents regained the cane taken away from them since the days of the Renaissance. The final dethronement of empirical proof opened the door for scientific advancement achieved by faith and fiat. It was such a glorious feat that angels even appeared at the White House on Christmas of 2026.

Those concentrating on the few bad things that happened missed all the remarkable transformations of the new world. Once and for all, the conservative majority that took over squashed George Bernard Shaw’s irrational fear that there are two tragedies–not getting what you want and getting what you want, with the latter being the most devastating.

If only people had known that the world was at a tipping point on the eve of the 2024 election and had not taken it as one of those political talks that this was the most consequential election in a generation, they would have paid little more attention. But they didn’t. They thought it was business as usual, and their narrow personal interests were more important than our collective interests as humans.

And here we are. Wednesday, November 8, 2028. As senior party officials prepare to visit the White House to beg the president to invite the president-elect for the traditional visit to the White House, the bell at St. James Church chimes a dirge.

Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo teaches post-colonial African history, Afrodiasporan literature, and African folktales at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is also the host of Dr. Damages Show. His books include “This American Life Sef” and “Children of a Retired God,” among others. His upcoming book is called “Why I’m Disappointed in Jesus.”