As of the time I am writing this, it is November 6th, 2024, the day after election day. To mine, and I hope most other people’s surprise, Donald Trump was elected to his second term in a landslide victory. Though there are still swing states with votes being tallied, the way things are going projects Trump to win with 359 electoral college votes, winning every single swing state. As of right now Trump leads the popular vote by about 4 million votes. In every way, this is the most disappointing result that the Democratic party could’ve expected. Perhaps it is the deeply rooted misogyny in our country that led to this loss. Perhaps it was a late shift from one candidate to another. Perhaps it was the faults in the democratic party’s stance on important issues. Whatever it was, it led a high enough margin of people to vote for a convicted felon, rapist, and racist over what could have been the most qualified president in American history. Today, we all face the simple fact that our country will be run by that horrible man for the next 4 years.
In no way am I the perfect person to be writing on these results.1 I’d like to get that out of the way. In the grand scheme of things the impact of this candidate won’t hurt me in the same way it will hurt others. Sure I will experience the economic collapse of America—melodramatic, but very much possible—, the removal of our constitution’s most elementary protections, and the greatest global embarrassment of America, but I won’t be the greatest victim of this presidency. Of those effected: every woman around the world will experience a removal of their rights, trans people will have access to gender affirming care revoked, and immigrants, both legal and illegal, will be deported with no mercy. I could go on forever, but someone has probably outlined the losses of this election better than I have. The fact of the matter is, of the people losing out from this presidency I am not losing that much. I say this not to tout how little this election effects me, but rather to highlight the worst part of this election: most of the republican votes came from straight, white, cisgender, men, the group that will not experience any of the worst parts of this presidency. Is that something wrong with our electoral system? Perhaps, but I think it is instead something wrong with our society today. People have become so engrossed in selfishness, that they can no longer see how their actions will effect others around themselves. Or, worse, they simply are so engrossed in hate that they want their actions to effect others in the way they know they will. I am afraid that more than likely the latter is true.
Moving forward from today, I am sure that some people will take these results as a sign that hate towards those who voted Trump is justified. In some ways it might be, there are those who voted for him that truly are horrible people. I’m sure there is a majority of Trump supporters who truly are racist, sexist, homophobic, and everything in-between. However, there is a non-insignificant majority of Trump supporters who don’t truly share those opinions. While their vote may point towards that viewpoint, many of them did not come to that position on their own. Trump has built his campaign around spreading fear and hysteria. He claimed that immigrants would take over, he claimed that democrats would perform sex changes on your kids, he claimed that foreign countries were working to destroy our way of life in ways only he could stop. While all of this wasn’t backed by facts, quite the contrary, it was performed to the American public in a way that made it so convincing it was able to skew the election in the way it has.2 It is for that reason I say we should not use this election as a sign to jump towards hatred. The people who made trump win were Americans that don’t share hatred for their fellow Americans, no matter how different they are from themselves. The people who made trump win were Americans that were tricked into believing Kamala would destroy the country and only Trump could save them. If hate should be placed on anyone it should be on Trump himself, and the corporations that most definitely backed him.
In the coming months, we will start to see the effects of Trumps victory. In every way, I hope that the predictions of its effects don’t end up coming true. However, I understand that there is likely not a world where nothing bad comes of his presidency. In my most conservative estimate, Trump embarrasses the nation, curates a Supreme Court that is loyal to him, and then pardons himself and his associates. In my worst estimate, this will be the last time we vote on a president of the United States. No matter how things go, I have no doubt in my mind that this election will go as one of the most influential elections in our nations history.
I feel as though I make this concession a lot. While I am privileged, I hope I can still offer up a worthwhile perspective. As always, those who are effected by these issues directly will be able to offer up a much more in depth perspective. It is for that reason I chose to speak less on the impact of a Trump presidency and more on the overall environment that I feel led up to the Trump presidency. ↩
Even this vantage point is a vast simplification of the state of things. Many Trump voters voted because they genuinely believed the economy was better under him, it looked like it even if it wasn’t. Some voted because they simply only vote for their party and cannot see outside of that. Some voted because they saw him as a stronger candidate even after his faults. There is errors in each of those perspectives, but nonetheless I don’t see it as a reason for hatred towards over half the country. There is most definitely a more nuanced approach towards that genre of Trump voter, but it is out of the scope of what I wish to focus this post on. It may become a post later, but as of right now I am not educated enough to faithfully write on that topic. ↩