That Was Then, This Is Now
In spite of it all, we do still have choices.
Issue #764 The Choice, Tuesday, November 12, 2024
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That Was Then
One week ago, we were in the “Before Time” (BT) when we were sure that Kamala Harris had the momentum to win the presidential election. Maybe it would be close, but we were sure she would win.
We would also regain the House and expand our numbers in the Senate.
The theme of the Harris-Walz Campaign was “Freedom.” Many of us realize that we not only lost the presidential election but will soon lose many, if not most, of the freedoms we’ve fought for over the decades.
However, we must remember that Trump did not win a little over half of the country, nor did he get a "mandate." Voter turnout was only about 65%, and Trump won barely 50% of the votes cast. That means Trump won ONLY 33% of the country—yep, only one-third of eligible voters!
I will not spend a lot of time here blaming whoever caused this tremendous loss. People everywhere are already doing that.
Assigning blame is useless unless viable solutions are offered and implemented.
That said, here are my top three reasons why we lost the election:
Racism. Too many white people, including 52% of white women (AGAIN), did not want us to elect another Black president. But we elected Barack Obama twice!
Sexism. Yes, Barack Obama is Black, but he is also a man. We came close twice to electing a woman president, and both times, our candidate was beaten by Donald Trump. Yet the only time Trump lost an election was to a man.
Misinformation and Disinformation. Misinformation is false or inaccurate information, just getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information deliberately intended to mislead, intentionally misstating the facts. The right-wing mediascape has been relentless in spreading disinformation, and unfortunately, a majority of Americans only get their information from those outlets.
This Is Now
What can we do now? While we cannot change the results of the elections, there are some things we can do, individually and collectively:
Practice self-care. These election losses are traumatic. As I’ve often said, if we had lost to John McCain or Mitt Romney, we wouldn’t have liked it. Still, we wouldn’t have had to worry about losing our very democracy or that they would “pal around” with anti-democratic global dictators. Many of us are truly going through the five stages of grief.
Get back to your routine as much as possible. I am lucky to have been self-employed and working from home since 2008, so I no longer have to deal with co-workers or others who may be opposite politically. I am also lucky that no one in my extended family is a Republican or MAGA, so I won’t have to fight them at Thanksgiving. If you have to deal with non-aligned others, please handle how you deal with them carefully.
Don’t worry about 2028 right now. We should concentrate on 2026 and watch out for what’s going on in our local areas and states.
Going forward, for my twice-weekly “The Choice” articles, I will concentrate on one or two current issues and discuss our choices of what to do and how to proceed.
We are in this together, and we will get through it together.