TToday is a day of despair. It would be pointless to tell people in America who are fearful and sad about what's to come that it's okay. It's also dishonest. The truth is, many of us won't be okay.
donald trump It appears that they won the American election decisively. He and his Republican allies are promising mass deportations that will destroy lives and tear families apart. They threatened to repeal the Affordable Care Act and appoint anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to prestigious positions in public health. They promised deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare, persecution of dissidents, and violent crackdowns on President Trump's political opponents. A nationwide ban on abortion is almost certain, which will further diminish women's civil rights, rob them of their dignity, rob them of their dreams, and undermine their health.
For those of us who know Trump's power, this morning plunged us into an unexpected, cold kind of sadness. There are people in America who are anxiously reading the news, bracing themselves for crackdowns and riots, and whose fears will inevitably be confirmed. Everyone will realize that they have to fear the incoming administration even more than they currently know. I'm talking about all the ordinary Americans who are alive today, thriving or struggling in this declining country, and whose lives will be destroyed or shortened by what is about to happen. I'm thinking.
For many people, Trump's victory will be remembered less than the upset over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Once again, his vulgarity, corruption, pettiness, narcissism, and bigotry were rewarded at our expense. His vanity, greed, incompetence, and anger will take precedence over the national interest, and the nation will once again be plunged into chaos. Violent and deeply misogynistic men have once again been elevated to positions of highest power over flawed but capable and hard-working women.
But 2024 is not 2016. It's even worse. In President Trump's first term, his incompetence often hampered his worst policies. no longer. Both government and civil society institutions worked to delay or resist his plans. Now, many of them seem eager to join, universities and NGOs are desperate to launder Trumpism and improve their publicity, and billionaire-controlled media are cutting deals and discriminating against them. They are desperate to suppress the press and minimize his misdeeds. And even if President Trump's impulses during his first term were sometimes tempered by moderates and institutionalists in his administration, all of those people have now been purged. He is surrounded by incels, bigots, conspiracy theorists, and sadists who are ready to use state institutions to pursue their hateful ends. Trump himself even has the promise of broad impunity, a recent gift from the Supreme Court that will enable his authoritarianism in ways we have not yet anticipated.
But Trump's victory and return to the White House is not only a disaster in terms of what it means for America's future. They are also the fear of what they will do to our past. The past eight years, four of them under President Trump, and the other four under the influence of President Trump, have caused a great deal of struggle and suffering in American politics. The groups he despises, from immigrants to women to the disabled to people from “shithole countries,” will be humiliated once again by his return and will vindicate themselves by voting against him. He would be betrayed by his compatriots who rejected him. Those who have been harassed, threatened and attacked by his supporters have seen their fellow citizens treat the violence inflicted on them with indifference at best and approval at worst.
Historically marginalized people among us – Black people, transgender people, women, etc. – have a meaningful sense of their worth and civil rights, despite the hate and class that President Trump has championed. I have worked hard to make it happen. This is what the Women's Marches, #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter are about, partly a rebuke to Trumpism, partly an expression of a desire for a different America, less brutal to its people, more deserving of a declaration. there were. Ideals of freedom and justice for all. They dreamed of turning this country into an equal and free nation. Instead, they have to content themselves with a small dream that protects them from the worst that is yet to come. With Mr. Trump back in office, the past few years now seem, in retrospect, like a humiliating waste of time.
Does America deserve Trump? It's been years since he came to power, and one theory is that he's just a manifestation of this country's unexpelled demons, and that this country is taking its economy off the backs of slavery. It is argued that it is a vestige of the racism that allowed it to be constructed and its casual association with violence. It has been able to build its territory and global hegemony through violent conquest and coercion: the love of dirty money and the shameless disregard for principles that have always motivated our greedy economy. In this version of the story, Trump is not just a symptom of the disease, but a kind of rebirth of America, a punishment for our sins. To live under his rule is to suffer harsh punishments worthy of one of the ironic punishments of the underworld of classical mythology or Dante's hell. The peculiarity of this horror is that the people who suffer most under his rule are usually those who are least guilty of these trespasses. Because we have never really paid for slavery, for empire, for the genocide and dispossession of Native Americans, for foreign wars and exploitation. . This is what we have to endure now. He is the one who brings these atrocities back to his own country and makes fun of them. Our smug delusion that we are, and could have once been, something else.
Despite this, there are still many Americans who want this country to be different. Just because you won't survive if you don't. In the coming days, those who tried to prevent this outcome will turn against each other. Liberals and leftists will condemn it. Various Harris campaign staffers will be named responsible for the failed strategy in this or that state. Someone will do something racist to scapegoat Arab Americans and the Uncommitted Movement. And many people, complacent and insulated from the worst of what's to come, will say Democrats have spent too much time campaigning on abortion rights issues.
There are many responsibilities. But most of the time, this accusation is a distraction, a way to postpone confrontation with what is to come. I hope we can instead focus on the most vulnerable among us, the people President Trump has opposed and ridiculed, the people who are less safe today than they hoped yesterday. I am. It is the targeted groups that need us, our unity and undivided attention. By relying on them, we can keep alive within ourselves the small part of America that Donald Trump is trying to destroy.
