It’s hard to comprehend the impact that yesterday’s election result will have on the future of women in the US and the rest of the world.
While trying to come to terms with how I’m personally feeling, I’ve landed on describing my numbness as a sort of anticipatory grief.
All I can really do is anticipate the consequences that another four years of Trump will bring to the world.
More women will die from abortions and lack of access to basic healthcare, as it’s likely Trump will support a nationwide abortion ban. Families and loved ones in the US are about to face the depravity of Trump’s mass deportation plans. The transgender community will have several of their rights stripped away. The mass shootings that continue to kill citizens in their own country will not be stopped by obvious gun regulations. And Trump’s plans to increase the use of fossil fuels will mean climate change is set to grow even worse than it already is on our dying planet.
As I rode the bus home from an election watch party yesterday, my earbuds rang with the singer Aurora’s lyrics: “When the last tree has fallen and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money.”
While there’s never one reason that people vote for a certain political candidate, I cannot help but hypothesise that money is at the core of this election outcome.
I’m from the swing state of Wisconsin (which yesterday turned red), and more than once, I heard people say that the cost-of-living crisis and state of the economy were their biggest concerns. It’s a valid concern, for sure, however, it looks like their trust towards which candidate would fix the problem has been placed in the wrong hands.
Many economists, including former US treasury secretary Larry Summers, have said that Trump’s plans to intervene in independent central banking risks setting off a spiral of rapid inflation as well as a weaker economy. More than 20 US recipients of the Nobel prize for economics signed a letter on October 23 that called Harris’ economic agenda “vastly superior” to Trump’s.
Money is at the centre of Trump’s agenda, but the catch is that his motivation is purely personal and not for the greater good.
Let’s not ever forget that Trump is a convicted felon facing multiple lawsuits that will come to a close for the next four years he is president. The long revered and historically significant Oval Office will now be used as a ‘get-out-of-jail free card’ for a sexual abuser, raging misogynist and racist man.
He’s been found liable for sexual abuse, holds 26 sexual misconduct allegations, has already been impeached as president and indicted for inciting a violent riot at the capital and has 34 felony counts.
For all the victim-survivors of sexual abuse, I feel you deeply and understand how hard it is to watch an entitled predator be placed in one of the most powerful positions in the world. That form of grief is an injustice to the human race.
If there was any hope that his first presidential victory was a fluke, it’s most definitely been destroyed. As many believed in 2016, America didn’t drop the ball over what we assumed was a joke. From the 71 million of us Americans who voted yesterday, it seems we’ve proven ignorance is a choice willingly made.
In her concession speech, Harris said “sometimes the fight takes a while,” and that feels painstakingly true with this result.
As I rack my brain for ways to cope with the thought of our ongoing fight, what seems to help is to look back through history and hold onto words from those who came before me. Those who have fought injustice in the past have much to teach my generation on how to channel our grief and anger into good.
“As long as we are not living in our full humanity, we cannot create a world for humanity.” ~Tarana Burke, American activist and creator of the MeToo movement
“I myself cried when I got angry, then became unable to explain why I was angry in the first place. Later I would discover this was endemic among female human beings. Anger is supposed to be “unfeminine” so we suppress it -until it overflows.” ~ Gloria Steinem, American journalist and social-political activist
“And I cried… for all of the women who stretched their bodies for civilizations, only to find ruins.” ~ Sonia Sanchez, American poet and leading figure in the Black Arts Movement.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and it does seem to me that notwithstanding all these social agencies and activities there is not that vigilance which should be exercised in the preservation of our rights.” ~ Ida B. Wells, American investigative journalist, sociologist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement.
In the coming days, we’re going to hear from analysts and experts who look back to figure out where the Harris campaign took a wrong turn. There will be plenty of speculation as well as much-needed collective discussion on how to move forward.
The work never ends, and we will always need those who are willing to fight the good fight.
Right now, however, those of us who so desperately held hope for America to choose the path of progress should be allowed to sit in our grief.
We could have had the first female US president with Harris, a woman of colour ready to fight for reproductive freedoms, gun safety, small businesses and the environment.
Those of us sitting in a burning house we didn’t choose are allowed to feel rage and anguish. Then, once we’ve acknowledged how much grief comes with taking a step backwards, the fight for our future continues.