We shed some tears this midterm cycle.

US politics always makes people emotional, but I heard from friends and colleagues many times this year that speeches, campaigns and underdog success stories moved people in unexpected ways, whether it was this ad of Michigan senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed doing bedtime, a photo of newly elected Texas Democrats James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa at a Whataburger, or Georgia’s Keisha Lance Bottoms becoming the first Black female governor in the entire country.

While you might reduce this to Democrats being happy about historically defeating the Republican party and Trumpism, there’s something much deeper to be seen and felt in Tuesday’s election results. A broad coalition of Americans, including Republicans, independents and those who had never voted before, decided to elect the most diverse, anti-establishment Congress in history.

People saw themselves reflected in the candidates, some first rejected by party leaders. In Maine, Troy Jackson, who entered the race at the last minute after the spectacular collapse of Graham Platner’s campaign, has bona fide blue collar credentials. El-Sayed is a son of a Michigan, reflecting communities that have long resided in the state but never been represented in the Senate. Annie Andrews in South Carolina came from a true grassroots effort to elect pro-science candidates at a time when children are dying from measles.

Along with that came a repudiation of some of the racist, xenophobic, transphobic and other rhetoric that has escalated in recent years. Bo French, the Texas politician who had posted a racist diatribe about south Asian students at a football game, lost his election, along with Vivek Ramaswamy and his abhorrent attack ad, Ken Paxton with his transphobic AI ads, and Mike Collins and his multiple associations with neo-Nazis. At a time when the Trump administration itself peddles racist tropes on its X account and at rallies, there were tears of relief and cautious hope of an era of decency.

When people told me in recent months that something made them cry they seemed almost embarrassed. But I see it as a very good sign. After years of outrage or numbness – fight or flight – being the main options for dealing with political news and the impacts of those in power, this kind of catharsis and joy feels like permission to be human and to be optimistic.

This is not to say voters in the US have any illusions that the newly elected public servants will immediately resolve political gridlock and restore normalcy to the country. Trump is unlikely to go quietly into the night his final two years in office, and Democrats have a track record of bungling opportunities to make big, bold progress. But seeing engagement and investment in the future take the place of the nihilism that has characterized the Trump era has been refreshing.

It’s a feeling that some are comparing to Barack Obama’s first election. As congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez herself said in a video to young voters who helped power the massive political shift: “If you want to understand millennial cringe … this earnestness, imagine all the seats we flipped last night plus on top of it electing the first Black president ever, and on top of that you did it the first time you voted.”

In an election that did what has recently seemed impossible: turning Texas blue, dumping Trump’s handpicked candidates, openly rejecting bigotry, the tears and the cringe are just history being made.