I hated the “zombie Palpatine” storyline for awhile on social media, but the United States of America willingly chose to reenact this in real-life by reelecting Donald Trump. But in a result even worse than 2016, he won the popular vote–a feat he failed to achieve in two previous runs for the White House. Votes are still being counted as I write this, so we don’t have a full picture of the final outcome, but it seems likely that the GOP will control all three branches of the federal government again. Trump appears to not have grown his vote totals from 2020 much at all–but some 11 million fewer people voted for Kamala Harris this cycle than voted for Joe Biden four years ago. To the extent there is any silver lining in this election wipeout, my home state is sending its first black senator to Washington, along with keeping my House representative Jamie Raskin in his seat.
Every post-mortem of Kamala Harris’ loss that I’ve read sucks–except Michael Harriot’s. It seems that black people in this country are nearly alone in believing in the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr for racial equality in this country–and that is why we are going back. The only question which remains to be answered is “how far back?” The Trump rally in Madison Square Garden before the the election suggests a return to the 1930s, when the pro-Nazi German-American Bund met openly and freely in New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere before World War II began. Trump (and JD Vance’s) blood libel of law-abiding Haitian migrants in Ohio and elsewhere and their campaigning on mass deportation and border camps sets this country’s return destination to the 1950s, and Operation Wetback–the largest mass deportation in this country’s history. We can be certain that the same administration which birthed the child separation policy at our southern border–a policy that years later has left hundreds of children growing up with strangers, separated from their real parents–will devise a sequel to Operation Wetback which makes the original look humane by comparison. The end of birthright citizenship–another part of Trump’s xenophobic plans–along with the return of the Muslim ban of his first term intimates a return to an 1860s United States after the Civil War but before the ratification of the 14th Amendment. This is just a small sample of the threats which await in the future. We don’t know if the Affordable Care Act will survive. We don’t know if the Department of Education will survive–along with the oversight and mandates it provides which ensure that my son gets support in public school for his special needs. We don’t know what will become of the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or any other federal agency responsible for protecting Americans from threats to their physical or financial health.
From January 20, 2025 onward, things will change. The coming days, weeks, and months will bring negative impacts that Trump’s non-wealthy supporters did not anticipate. Tariffs are certainly returning, along with the inflation that comes from companies increasing their prices to maintain their profit margins. I’m good on the appliances front myself, but I might be upgrading more of my personal technology earlier than I planned to avoid the price increases that tariffs will bring. The mass deportation plans, possible Affordable Care Act repeal, and other aspects of Project 2025 may create infighting, backlash, and enough pain nationwide to create a small window to mitigate some of the damage in 2026–if elections remain a thing we still have in this country. That hope may be a dangerous thing, but I will nurture it nonetheless.
Despite these future threats, I have decided to focus more on the present. What can I do today to make sure I’m ok, that my wife and kids are ok, and that the people who matter to me are ok? Answering those questions and doing as many of those things as possible, and repeating that cycle the day after that is what I can do. In addition, I can figure out what I can do beyond voting to make the spaces I inhabit and have influence in a little better. It may not be much, but it feels like a more productive and sustainable alternative than despair.