Trump has won the election. Carrying every single swing state — and with a majority of the popular vote! It’s shocking. It’s devastating. What do we do now?
IEB’s Nancy L. penned an initial reaction — as posted in our latest newsletter:
“I know you are all reeling, as I am. I told someone this morning that my heart is broken, but it’s deeper than that. I am broken at the core of my being. I’m groping for the words that can somehow make sense of this, somehow capture the devastation, rage, and grief of this moment, somehow bring solace to those who are the most betrayed, or in the most danger.
I have failed to find those words.
All I have is what I said at our last membership meeting before the election. It was about what we were doing to win, etc. etc., and then I tacked on at the end something like: “even if we lose, we’re still here. Indivisible East Bay is not going anywhere. We’ll work together for whatever comes next.”
Indivisible’s Co-Executive Director, Ezra Levin, offered this initial assessment.
“I believe a loss of this nature requires humility and exploration, not finger-pointing. While we might each have our own valid critiques of the campaign, this loss cannot ultimately be reasonably attributed to any single campaign strategy or decision. It is rooted in the failure to hold Trump accountable for his crimes in his first term. It is rooted in the fragmentation of the anti-MAGA coalition, including defections from corporations and billionaires like Musk and Bezos. It is rooted in the sinister evolution of media infrastructure and social media platforms. It is exacerbated by sexism and racism.
But above all, it is rooted in broad popular frustration and alienation that allowed Trump to successfully brand himself as a change candidate.”
As you can imagine, our mailbox and newsfeeds have been overflowing with responses from every corner of the progressive movement — as well as mainstream media.
For starters, we recommend these two excellent articles from The Atlantic:
“Donald Trump has won, and will become president for the second time. Those who voted for him will now celebrate their victory. The rest of us need to prepare to live in a different America: a country where millions of our fellow citizens voted for a president who knowingly promotes hatred and division; who lies—blatantly, shamelessly—every time he appears in public; who plotted to overturn an election in 2020 and, had he not won, was planning to try again in 2024.
Above all, we must learn to live in an America where an overwhelming number of our fellow citizens have chosen a president who holds the most fundamental values and traditions of our democracy, our Constitution, even our military in contempt. Over the past decade, opinion polls have showed Americans’ faith in their institutions waning. But no opinion poll could make this shift in values any clearer than this vote. As a result of this election, the United States will become a different kind of country.”
“Many of those shattered by this result will be tempted to withdraw into passivity—or recoil into performative radicalism. Reject both. We should focus, instead, on how to win back to the cause of liberal democracy a sufficient number of those Americans who voted for a candidate who denigrated this nation’s institutions and ideals.”
“An aspiring fascist is the president-elect, again, of the United States. This is our political reality: Donald Trump is going to bring a claque of opportunists and kooks (led by the vice president–elect, a person who once compared Trump to Hitler) into government this winter, and even if senescence overtakes the president-elect, Trump’s minions will continue his assault on democracy, the rule of law, and the Constitution.”
“Trump’s victory is a grim day for the United States and for democracies around the world. You have every right to be appalled, saddened, shocked, and frightened. Soon, however, you should dust yourself off, square your shoulders, and take a deep breath. Americans who care about democracy have work to do.”
We also recommend this column from Robert Reich:
“The Democratic Party should use this inflection point to shift ground — from being the party of well-off college graduates, big corporations, “never-Trumpers” like Dick Cheney, and vacuous “centrism” — to an anti-establishment party ready to shake up the system on behalf of the vast majority of Americans.”
And these two more sobering perspectives from The New York Times:
Stop Pretending Trump Is Not Who We Are
“There have been so many attempts to explain away Trump’s hold on the nation’s politics and cultural imagination, to reinterpret him as aberrant and temporary. “Normalizing” Trump became an affront to good taste, to norms, to the American experiment.
We can now let go of such illusions. Trump is very much part of who we are. Nearly 63 million Americans voted for him in 2016. Seventy-four million did in 2020. And now, once again, enough voters in enough places have cast their lot with him to return him to the White House. Trump is no fluke, and Trumpism is no fad.
After all, what is more normal than a thing that keeps happening?”
‘Trump’s America’: Comeback Victory Signals a Different Kind of Country
The Trump era, it turns out, was not a four-year interregnum. Assuming he finishes his new term, it now looks to be a 12-year era that puts him at the center of the political stage as long as Franklin D. Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan were.
It is Mr. Trump’s America after all.
These articles don’t paint a pretty picture. That’s the reality of where we are. But they do offer hope amidst an undeniably dark road ahead. That’s about all we can ask for now.
Expanded and updated: November 8
