It’s 6:48 a.m., I just woke up, and ABC News has projected that Donald Trump will win the 2024 United States Presidential Election. Additionally, the United States Senate has flipped to a Republican majority, while Republican control of the House of Representatives remains.
I cannot say I am surprised, but I am in shock at the prospect of living under another four years of a Trump presidency and with the possibility of Elon Musk and RFK Jr in high positions of government.
Last night, surrounded by friends, I watched as election results poured in. I tried to keep a level head as all my friends worried, telling them to just let it play out. I told them to keep calm and there was no way that Kamala could lose. Now, I think about last night and I can’t help but think of the 2016 SNL skit that parodied the night of Hilary Clinton’s loss to Trump.
Four years ago, during the election cycle, rapper Megan Thee Stallion released an op-ed in the New York Times called “Why I Speak Up for Black Women.” In this piece, she details the roles of Black women in politics and society, using the language of Black feminist theorists who came before her. She discusses the plight of Black women across the United States, including the violence we face and the hurdles we need to leap over. She also discusses her support for Kamala Harris’s vice presidency and the historic way Black women have ‘delivered votes for the Democratic party.’
She ends the the piece writing:
“…Black women are not naïve. We know that after the last ballot is cast and the vote is tallied, we are likely to go back to fighting for ourselves. Because at least for now, that’s all we have.”
This feeling is all I can think about as I write this morning. It is all I feel when considering what the coming days hold for me. I also can’t help but imagine what I might hear today, whether it be from my peers and friends, the media I consume today, professors I see today…
“America just wasn’t ready for a Black Woman President.“
“I just cannot believe how much this country hates women.“
“I’m just so scared about what’s going to happen (as a white person living in the top 1%).”
“Pro-Palestinian Leftists // Third Party Voters // [insert minority group] // are to blame for a Harris-Walz loss.”
For some reason, I want to talk about this election even less than I did yesterday. Going into this election, I was optimistic for a Harris-Walz win, not because I felt hopeful, but because I felt it had to happen. Donald Trump had to lose, he had to not become president again.
We knew the stakes going into this election. Donald Trump has shown us who he is at every chance he could get, whether it be at the ‘nazi’ rally he hosted at Madison Square Garden, the racist and xenophobic language he used in his debate against Vice President Kamal Harris, or the podcast circuit he has chosen to go on to round out his campaign.
Kamala Harris has also shown us who she is (or at least attempted to) when she refused to directly answer questions important to voters, notably at her recent Town hall when she said, “For many people who care about this issue, they also care about bringing down the price of groceries,” regarding her actions as Vice president with ongoing genocide in Gaza and in a recent interview when she chose not clarify to Americans who she would have represented whether or not she would protect their rights to gender-affirming care, saying she would, “follow the law.” She also moved further to the Right in her immigration policy, along with cozying up to old-guard Republicans and Democrats unpopular to her younger voter base such as Bill Clinton, Dick Cheyney, and Liz Cheyney.
It is now 11:03 a.m., and I am sitting in Erdman Dining Hall, wearing my keffiyeh, having just finished breakfast. I can’t help but notice a look of sorrow on the faces of everyone who walks past me. Maybe I am projecting, but the ‘Bryn Mawr bubble’ this year really made me feel optimistic about a Harris-Walz Win, and I think a lot of people are feeling the same way. Maybe it was an optimism born out of desperation.
The last line of Megan’s piece, “Because at least for now, that’s all we have,” is the note I would like to leave this piece on. Maybe this desperate optimism is all we will have to hang onto for the next four years. I hope it can lead to some sort of resistance for those who will be the most affected and the most victimized by a second Trump presidency.
