Trump’s America
Brooklyn, New York
The Trump victory was a violent affirmation of the America that has been here all along. A political party that many, many people feel excited by, a leadership they believe is blessed by God. 70 million people is not nothing, it is more than triple the population of Australia, where I am from (26 million). 70 million people are unhappy with the status quo, and the rest of us—those who voted for Harris/Walz, those who voted third party, those who didn’t, those who couldn’t—are no less satisfied.
Over the last few days I have been thinking about grief, my own and from my wider community. I have seen over and over that people do not recognize this country anymore, or perhaps more accurately can no longer pretend that they do. This grief mirrors the celebration happening at the same time for millions of voters who hoped for this result. I imagine their hope, a promise of returning to an America they believe was taken from them. I think about the immigrant groups that turned out in droves, the people who came from somewhere else, like me, who are voting in self interest.
America is nothing if not a place that rewards and values self interest. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You manifest your own destiny. You can be anything you want to be in America, except maybe the president if you are not a white man. Self interest has limits, because humanity does not exist in a vacuum. Our greatest achievements, in art, in culture, in science are built off the backs of the people who came before us, they’re built in a complex tapestry of everyone who surrounds us. The project of America is the belief in the promise of a United States of America, a coalition, a unity that is simply impossible against the backdrop of imperialism and self interest that defines this country. Many people have had the privilege of not seeing (or just ignoring) that reality until now. The veil has been lifted for the people who refused to see it otherwise.
I once hit a deer while driving upstate. I was alone, heading to a friend’s house for a birthday. I saw the first deer, stopped to let it bound across the road. I sped up as it disappeared into the thicket as the second jumped right in front of my car. I drove over its body and kept going. I was in shock, and I thought that if I just kept driving for 20 more minutes to my destination, I would be safe, I would be fine. Ghost was in the passenger seat howling. I could see the front bumper crumpled high where I had hit the deer, smoke seeping out the edges of the jagged mess. Every symbol on the dashboard was bright red and blinking. I realized that I could not just pretend it wasn’t happening, I had a terrible image of me and Ghost burning alive. I pulled over and waited for my friends to come and get me.
For a long time, I think liberal America has been existing in that moment of denial, those ten minutes I pretended like I had not just totaled a Mini Cooper. The hope and belief that if you just keep going on the journey you set out on, that maybe you can get to your destination unscathed.
This week I finally came closer to understanding what it must have felt like for the insurrectionists on January 6. What drives you to show up to the doorstep of the most protected and symbolic building of the most powerful country in the world with the desire to destroy. I’m closer to understanding what it must feel like for the rug to be pulled out, suspended between multiple realities—mine, and that of 70 million people who see a different America. A version of America that won by popular vote, won the presidency, won the Senate, and may yet win the House.
I am in no way minimizing the grief I feel about a Trump worldview being so thoroughly endorsed and embraced by the masses. I am an immigrant to this country, born from refugees of the Vietnam War. I am a woman. I am somebody who has descended from the collateral damage of a war waged by the country I now find myself in. I don’t think there’s any time left, let alone another four years, for this country to make the kind of climate inroads it needs to avoid total catastrophe and to mitigate harm.
I feel deep grief when I think about a Republican supermajority and what that will mean for the millions of people who will be affected: the undocumented, the queer community, trans people, poor black mothers, teachers, disabled people. The real victims of this victory. I woke to text messages that told me what was happening before I had time to look at the news, and I woke my boyfriend up with my sobs. I was not crying for what this means for me, in my liberal bubble as a privileged immigrant in Brooklyn. It was grief for the suffering that will ripple out, tearing through families and communities who’ve long fought the impossible—the illusion of an America we’ve never fully reckoned with.
I feel grief when I see the fingers pointed postmortem, the graphics shared on Instagram of the demographics that did and did not vote for this one or that one. People on both sides of the leftist spectrum saying “I told you so, you deserve what happens now.” This feels only like a perpetuation of the circumstances that brought us here. To blame each other, to continue to be tricked by these systems that are designed to pit people against each other. The person who voted for Jill Stein or for Trump is no less the problem than all of our collective impulses to continue the status quo, to reject the shadow of America as an intrinsic part of its character.
We must be willing to see each other as comrades with common goals rather than moral enemies. I believe in a world where there is a free Palestine, where the women of Iran are not held under the boot of men, where there is socialized healthcare, where systems are designed for care rather than for money. I believe in the enduring struggle that must continue, I believe in face to face conversations with strangers, in libraries, and in fighting the systems that have created a sick and addicted society rather than punishing its victims. I believe this can all still happen, and I am optimistic and hopeful that things can and will change if we rise to meet the moment. I wish that we could achieve this without the suffering that will inevitably come, but they say you need to hit rock bottom to change. I believe that change is not linear and that life is long, and that many of us are young and have time to develop the muscle of struggle and care for others. I refuse to let the pain overwhelm my hope, because there is no other choice, because I cannot imagine what the next four years is going to bring if we all choose to become numb, to continue with the status quo.
This election made it clear that nobody on either side is happy with the way that things are. I hope it is a rebirth. I hope for change, and I hope for that change to happen with minimal suffering. We are all aware that electing Kamala would not have been enough. We can’t expect entrenched systems to act beyond self-interest until we force change with a collective demand too big to ignore, as we saw this week. It’s on us to deeply examine how to expand each of our little bubbles to let in more of the world around us in its naked truth, even if it is painful, even if we are exhausted, even if its hard.
They say it takes 250 years for an empire to fall. In 2024, it has been 248 since the dawn of the project of America, a project built on the backs of slaves that is rapidly reaching the logical end of its violent and inhumane origins. It is time for us to build something new, and I am holding deep grief and a cautious optimism that no one is exempt from seeing America in complete honesty now, and that this can lead to a principled and sustained collective fight that will build something new.
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