Vice President Kamala Harris visited the COVID-19 mass vaccination site at M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore on April 29, 2021. Marking the 100th day of the Biden administration, Harris thanked the members of the Maryland National Guard and University of Maryland Medical System for their support of vaccination efforts. (U.S. Air National Guard photos by Staff Sgt. Sarah M. McClanahan) (Flickr Creative Commons)
Everyone I know is trying to come to terms with Kamala Harris’ presidential loss.
Granted, her loss came after a stellar three-month sprint after the Democratic Party decided to remove their support from President Joe Biden. Biden did his best by passing the baton to her, and she ran as flawless of a campaign as anyone could have asked.
You’re probably feeling like my family and friends–angry, sad, emotional, despairing. I’ve vacillated through all of these emotions today. But I also kept training my eye on hope, my personal north star.
Even though it is hard to feel hope, and sometimes it feels easy to just give up, hope is powerful, and it’s active. As someone who is a descendant of slaves, hope is the only reason I’m alive today, and why my parents are alive, and so forth. If the enslaved Africans who I’m descended from just gave up, who knows where the country would be, much less what I’d be doing right now, or if I’d even be alive. Hope isn’t just a fool’s errand. It’s real, tangible, magical power that has, as the Black church always says about God, will make a way out of no way.
As horrible as it seems right now–and it does seem excruciatingly horrible–us believers in democracy and hope will make a way out of no way again. But it doesn’t hurt right now to sit in the pain of this loss. It’s a feeling of being so close to something great, something life-changing. There’s no timetable on getting over that kind of hurt.
With that said, despair isn’t the place we should end on. As my family had to tell me today, despair is letting the enemy win. We don’t have to let Trump and the lot of them win in our hearts and minds. It is revolutionary to keep your hope alive, because your hope ignites the candles of hope in others. Your resilience helps others find their resilience. Don’t discount yourself and your value–your value to yourself, your family, your community, and the country.
Don’t discount other ways of revolution that are sometimes thought of as frivolous–having fun, looking after yourself, going for your dreams in the face of crisis. Again, going back to the African American ancestors, they had less than we do, with more judgement facing them than we have ever experienced in our lives. Yet, they created beautiful things, made historical advances, made us and themselves laugh, made families, and kept going after their dreams and goals, regardless of what people or the government had to say. We can look to them for inspiration. They kept their hope alive in the harshest of circumstances. So can we, and we can do so with joy, self-love, and love for others.
We are the nation, and we have the power to change this country, even now. Especially now, actually. To paraphrase a social media post by Liz Cheney, we are the guardrails of democracy. We are also the guardrails of our own hope, belief, perseverance, and determination to keep this country going, regardless of whatever type of carnage Trump tries to create. There are more of us than him, and we are more powerful than him, even if it feels like he keeps getting away with whatever he wants.
I have some parting words from various places that have helped me today. First, an email from the ACLU, in which they promise to fight against Trump and the threat of Project 2025. For me, this email reminds me that when I might feel low, there are people who have different sets of expertise who are ready to fight for my rights and the rights of others. It shows me that there are helpers we can count on (to paraphrase Mr. Rogers) who help shoulder the burden and, indeed, gain victories over those who would want to turn back the clock.
The results of the election are in: Donald Trump will be the 47th President of the United States.
I know these results create fear for many, particularly those whose communities have been most targeted and threatened by the President-elect’s extreme rhetoric and policy proposals. If President-elect Trump comes for our communities, he’s gotta get past all of us.
President-elect Trump has been crystal clear about his plans to deport one million immigrants every year and target the enemy within – which, for Trump, means anyone who disagrees with him. He is dead serious about seeking retribution against his political opponents and deploying federal law enforcement to shut down protests and muzzle dissent. Guided by Project 2025, we are sure he will try to make good on those promises.
He and the administration officials he will put in place will work to attack the rights of LGBTQ people, implement archaic and cruel immigration policies, undermine press freedoms, and make it harder for Americans to vote.
It is not hyperbolic to say that this president presents a clear and present danger to our democracy.
But here at the ACLU, we’re clear-eyed about the chaos and destruction a second Trump administration will cause to our nation. We’re done with the hand wringing. We won’t be admiring this problem. Instead, we are ready to take action the minute Trump takes the oath of office.
The fact is, we’re familiar with fighting a Trump White House.
One week into Trump’s first presidency, we were the first organization to challenge his Muslim ban. And when the administration sought to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census, the ACLU took that fight to the Supreme Court and won. It was our litigation that stopped the inhumane practice of separating immigrant families at the border.
The ACLU filed 434 legal actions against the first Trump administration’s illegal and cruel actions – and we are prepared to fight again with the organization’s full firepower.
There is not a doubt in my mind that the ACLU is ready to meet this moment:
- We have a detailed playbook that breaks down exactly how to fight Trump’s Project 2025 agenda.
- We have plans in place to litigate, legislate, and mobilize for reproductive freedom, immigrants’ rights, LGBTQ rights, racial justice, and all civil rights and liberties – in the courts, in Congress, and in the streets.
- We have a nationwide network of affiliates that uniquely enables us to take our fights local and build firewalls against the worst of Trump’s policies in every state across America.
Monique, here at the ACLU, we play the long game. We’ve been around for 105 years. We’ve seen 19 presidents come and go. With your support, we will vigorously defend your right to protest and speak against our government. Especially when that government attacks our civil liberties and civil rights.
The next four years will be challenging, but we’ll be ready on day one. You can count on it. We’re counting on you, too.
(Donate to the ACLU)
The second is a Facebook post from one of my friends. I’ll leave them anonymous since I don’t have explicit permission to put their name, but I feel I can share what they wrote, since they were quoting directly from Martin Luther King’s book, Strength to Love. The most important thing for me was reading how evil does create its own seeds for its destruction. Being reminded of that fact that possibly help you remember that evil forces have a time limit–their time does run out.
“It reminds us that evil carries the seed of its own destruction. In the long run right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. The great historian, Charles A. Beard, was once asked to give the major lessons that he had learned from history. He answered by saying that he had learned four. Here they are: “First, whom the gods would destroy they must first make mad with power. Second, the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small. Third, the bee fertilizes the flower it robs. Fourth, when it is dark enough you can see the stars.”
I’ll end with something I wrote on Instagram earlier today.
I’m tired, like the rest of you. But no matter how bad we feel now, it is a blessing to know that everything, even this period in time, is temporary. It is great to know that as much as we are sharing in collective grief, we also have the power to share in collective growth, collective fight, and collective victory. Being in community is the biggest thing, I feel, that defeats powers that want to divide and separate us. So now is the time to find your communities, fight for them, and lean on them in times of sorrow like this. It is through this act of collective sharing that we will win much more than just a presidency. We will win our country and birth a much stronger nation from this sorrow.
But that fight can be held off until tomorrow. Right now, the wound stings and it is fine to feel the coldness of the current reality. Right now, it is perfectly fine to rest.
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