Remaining Resolute

Revisiting the day after the election to reassert the need for a motivated opposition

(Photo by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

We have learned some predictable facts since the election on Nov. 5. Donald Trump will try to load his cabinet and “leadership” team with billionaires, reckless incompetents, sycophants to carry out his vengeful desires, convicted felons and sexual assaulters, and men and women who will work to dismantle our democratic institutions and undermine our nation’s security. He will pursue an oligarchy and kleptocracy to make himself and his super-rich cronies richer while stripping away the social programs that provide working people basic stability and the opportunity to get ahead. He will push crazy, distracting, hostile ideas like buying Greenland, taking the Panama Canal and making Canada a U.S. state.

Yes, we have four long years ahead of us with Trump in the White House, a disturbing prospect which has generated fear and doubt, resignation and cynicism among too many of our fellow citizens. But this is all part of the plan, as I noted on Nov. 11: “Trump and the Republicans want us to believe we are facing an apocalypse and there’s nothing we can do about it.” I concluded that essay like this: “If we all throw up our hands in despair and do nothing, they will be right. But I remain resolute: We will see our way through this grim chapter. There will be a better future.”

I still believe this—and I hope most of you do, too. That’s why I’m re-sharing my essay from the day after the election, Nov. 6, which already feels like a lifetime ago. I ended that essay with these words, which I hope remind you what is demanded of us at every level to build an opposition: “We cannot indulge ourselves with the feeling that ‘it’s all over,’ that democracy dies on the day Trump takes office again, however understandable that fear is. Our collective work—and the continuing work of America, America—can and must lay the necessary groundwork for positive change. Our country and our planet demands nothing less.”

Count me among the pro-democracy, pro-American advocates who will not be exhausted or motivated by cynical defeatism. I hope you feel the same.

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What the Voters Chose, What We Do Now: Yes, Donald Trump will be the next president. Our resistance continues.

The American voters made their choice last night. With everything that is known and knowable about Donald Trump, they chose to re-elect him and return him to our White House. They have chosen this precarious path that turns its back on the American democratic experiment and grants him the power to act on his worst instincts and darkest desires. They have told us that questions of character and decency, compassion and honesty do not represent what matters to them in their nation’s leader.

We can expect that women’s reproductive freedom will be just one of many rights and freedoms that Trump and the newly empowered Republicans will take away as they pursue their agenda of change, accelerated by a Senate majority and the backing of a corrupt and radical Supreme Court. This choice by a majority of our fellow Americans will put millions of migrants and many other marginalized and vulnerable populations in danger—not to mention our free press and other critics of Trump. It also puts our planet at further risk as the climate crisis is deemed fake and of no consequence.

This is a bitter pill to swallow. It’s the nightmare I feared and prayed would not come true. It portends a despotic, authoritarian future fueled by anger, grievance, the desire for vengeance and the misbegotten notion that a strongman can easily solve problems that are complex and often global in nature. It puts our democratic alliances in jeopardy as this chosen leader kowtows to Russia and Vladimir Putin, turns toward and is flattered by other dictators, seeks to abandon Ukraine and endangers NATO. It makes a mockery of all the men and women of good will—many who worked closely with Donald Trump—who spoke out about his fundamental lack of moral, intellectual and emotional fitness to ever again perform the duties of President of the United States.

I was wrong in expecting that a majority of voters would recognize the danger and reject him. I was wrong in assuming that the joyful and skillful campaign of Kamala Harris would resonate with a sufficient numbers of voters to ensure her win. I was wrong in believing that her decision to de-emphasize her identity as a woman of color, her specific policy agenda, and her sincere promise to be a president for all Americans would take her to the Oval Office. There’s no getting around the fact—clearly asserted last night—that we are living in a country that is not committed to a progressive future. At least for the next four years.

There will be time on another day to reflect on the demographic breakdowns, the specific issues and the other motivations that led voters to choose four more years of Trump. The belief of two-thirds of Americans that the country is on the wrong track, the widespread discomfort about the cost of living and the likely false nostalgia about Trump’s first term are surely among the realities that the Democratic nominee could not overcome.

Yes, I am sad this morning. Yes, I am stunned and disturbed and horrified about what my fellow Americans have chosen and what this fascistic future may include. The thought that Donald Trump, backed by a Republican Senate, may choose more Supreme Court justices is especially alarming, influencing our lives for decades to come.

But the work to build a better America continues. Acts of resistance and opposition will be critical. (So is self-care.) Speaking out—not being intimidated or overtaken by fear—is our duty to our country.

I don’t underestimate the difficulty, but we should be strengthened by the knowledge that millions and millions of other Americans also woke up this morning with great sadness. There are Democratic states, Democratic leaders and other pro-democracy advocates who also will be doing what they can to withstand the corrosive and dangerous actions Trump and his enablers will pursue.

We cannot indulge ourselves with the feeling that “it’s all over,” that democracy dies on the day Trump takes office again, however understandable that fear is. Our collective work—and the continuing work of America, America—can and must lay the necessary groundwork for positive change. Our country and our planet demands nothing less.

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