Better or worse
I was not surprised by the Trump victory. I had prepared myself for what I thought would be a long, contested election. I imagined we would face a situation much like in 2016 where Trump would lose the popular vote, but carry the Electoral College. I was prepared for any number of tricks, from Trump’s secret plans to violence at the ballot boxes.
What I was not prepared for was the breadth of the republican victory. Not only did Trump have a clear majority at the polls, in state after state republicans moved to positions of authority. In Michigan the Democratic nominee for senate, Elissa Slotkin, barely squeaked by her republican challenger. The party lost control of the state legislature. While my city of Detroit remained steadfastly democratic, there is no question that Trump made significant gains among African Americans, Latinx, women and workers.
There is some solace in the number of progressive measures, especially around minimum wages and working conditions, that were passed in many states, including those that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. But the reality is that the majority of votes knowingly voted for a person whose actions are steeped in ignorance, cruelty, vindictiveness, and disdain for decency. His ideas and actions are not hidden.
It is this reality that is sitting so heavily with me. I had come to believe that the majority of people would in the end see through the lies and reject the hatefulness that marks Trump’s campaign. I had thought that in this century we were moving beyond the kind of ugliness and violence that is so much a part of the history of this land.
I was wrong. And while I believe as Robin D.G. Kelley said recently that if Harris had come out to stop the war in Gaza, she would likely have unleashed the energy needed to win, this does not explain the profound victories for republicans at state and local levels. Here people who endorsed wild conspiracy theories, attacked basic rights, and despised the most vulnerable among us, won elections.
The sift rightward is clear. And the politics of fear and division are being embraced.
This is a sobering reality.
In part it can only be understood in the context of the long struggle for dignity and human rights in this country. As Professor Carol Anderson of Emory University recently said of the election:
The Confederacy won. When you begin to really think about what he advocated, the kind of racism, the kind of xenophobia, the kind of hatred, all wrapped in a sense of honor and gallantry, and how that resonated with such a large, wide swath of the American public, that begins to tell you that you’re seeing the backlash to what they call the great — you know, that you’re seeing the backlash to what they fear was the great replacement. And so, this feels like the kind of last stand of white supremacy.
And it’s going to put so many of us in jeopardy. And it’s also part of the drug of American exceptionalism, where those who voted for him believe that they’re going to be safe from the policies that he’s going to rain down... It’s like living in a reality show and believing that it’s not reality. It is — this is a dark day for America. I think of Thomas Jefferson when he said, “I tremble for my country, because God is just,” because that’s what we’re looking at. I’m trembling for our country right now.
This election is also part of the painful ending of the epoch begun 250 years ago with the American and French revolutions. The emergence of industrial capitalism and representative democracies in the context of colonial empires fueled the creation of nation states and created systems of supremacy and extraction that are no longer able to resolve the chaos they have created. Thus, as Immanuel Wallerstein and Grace Boggs warned us in 2010, the old systems are dying. The only question is, “Will what replaces them be better or worse?”
What we face is nothing less than the urgent need to rebuild our lives, our communities and social ties on a vision of a future that centers people and our earth over the profits and privileges of a few. There are no short cuts, no simple answers.
This we know. Fear fuels fascism. We cannot build a future based on fear. We who believe in freedom must find ways to come together to birth futures rooted in love and justice. The alternative is clear.