The days after

Trump won, again. That’s…..

infuriating? disappointing? expected? inevitable? farcical? rage-inducing?

There are a lot of people saying they are feeling devastated, and depressed, and despairing, and scared. Those are all absolutely, completely, legitimate feelings. Dark days are ahead.

Those dark days, they aren’t here yet though. January 20th, I might feel all those things. But right now, I am having trouble relating to the depression. I am having trouble relating to the despair.

What I am feeling is this complicated mix of understanding, sympathy, revulsion, and being done.

Understanding

It may sound crazy, but I get it. I get why someone—a normal, every day decent someone—would vote for Trump right now in this moment.

Like, surely you’ve noticed life in America is already a hellscape for those of us without a billion dollars, right? We can’t afford anything, what little we can get to make ends meet is gotten by slaving so hard at 1 (or 2 or 4) shitty jobs that we sometimes drop dead while working and no one notices. The companies not out to bleed us dry as employees are out to bleed us dry by: hijacking our time, attention, and brain function; inserting themselves into every human interaction and connection; stealing our personal data and our creative output; and selling us crappy cheap products that make us sick and our planet sicker for as much money as they can get away with. No one has time to do anything but work, sleep, and eat. And if we’re super lucky, our homes and towns won’t get burned down or washed away in the latest climate-change-fueled 1000-year storm / flood / fire.

We have a lot of dread, and it is NOT existential.

I have said this to at least three people now, including my mom (hi mom!). The Democrats had power from 2020-2022. What Democrat voters wanted was crystal clear. If Democrats had picked any single thing and just did that thing, they might have had enough trust to win this election. There was a plethora to chose from! Wipe out student debt! Build lots of new housing! Enshrine abortion rights into federal law! Shore up Obamacare! Expand the number of Supreme Court justices! Repeal fucking Citizens United! ANY ONE THING. But no. Democrats get into power and wring their hands and insist that change is incremental, that they just don’t have the votes, and it’s hard and complicated and these things take time, and oh, right, party Democrats don’t really want change, do you, because the same shitty corporations ruining our lives pay Democrats as much as they pay Republicans, and you can’t bite the hand that feeds you, can you, you PIECES OF SHIT.

(Okay, maybe also I feel some anger.)

Democrats weren’t even promising hope and change anymore. Just: hey, that other guy sucks. Vote against him or the world ends.

And I can see a person buried under the many hardships and indignities of late-stage capitalism thinking: so I vote for Democrats and everything basically stays the same. I am expected to be excited because now I can file my taxes for free and maybe get an extra thousand or two a year in tax breaks for my kids. Or….

The Trump party has been very, very busy selling a dream. And the dream is this: We will sweep away all the people and all the problems standing between you and the American dream. We can pave that straight path between where you are now and being the next Elon Musk. It’s America baby, and we’re all just billionaires-in-waiting. Pretty soon, it’ll be your turn.

Democrats do nothing. At least Republicans get something done.

And I know I’m right, because exit polls.

The ability to lead and to be someone who can bring needed change were the top two candidate qualities for voters — and Trump won them handily.

How Trump won the 2024 election — CBS News exit poll results

Just a few other stats from the exit polls that jumped out to me:

• So Kamala Harris's approval rating in the exit poll: 48 / 51. It's a pretty good approval rating in American politics today. Donald Trump's approval was 44 / 54. So she was more popular than him.

• Were Harris's views too extreme? 46% said yes 51% said no. Were Trump's views too extreme? 55% said yes 43% said no. So likability, favorability, extreme ideology: these were not what defined vote choice for people.

• The second most important candidate quality: Who can bring needed change? Donald Trump won those voters 73 to 25.

Jon Favreau, How Donald Trump Defeated Kamala Harris in the 2024 Presidential Election

Sympathy

So, yes, I get it. Something needs to change, because we can’t keep this up much longer. The wheels are coming off of our financial bus, and we’re all very, very tired of wealthy economists insisting that things look great, actually. Why are we even using the same metrics to measure the financial health of a trillion-dollar corporation and individual families, anyway?! Quality of life right now equals barely treading water, and it feels like everyone we know is just one bad day away from drowning.

We do need change. We do. You aren’t crazy or psychopathic for thinking that. Things need to change.

Revulsion

What the actual fuck is wrong with us, America?! Yes, Trump will bring the big change. And yes, I’m sure it feels fuckin’ great to own the libs and drain the swamp and prop up your failing toxic manhood one last time before it withers into the trash heap of history where it belongs. And maybe you’ll laugh and say good riddance when millions of people are deported—citizens or not, oh well. More women dying in parking lots, more trans suicides, more hate crimes against the marginalized—just the price to pay so you can feel big and important.

It’s gonna feel so great right up until you realize you can’t pay your fucking mortgage, what few jobs your town had are gone, the price of everything is now three times higher than it is today, and you can’t even afford the fucking drink you’re desperate for because what little you had is gone. That’s what Trump’s policies are going to do to you. They will make him and his friends so rich they will shit gold and they will be so thankful to you for their money that they’ll let you live out the rest of your miserable life in the pile of corpses and devastated families your vote created.

And don’t give me: oh he just says things but he doesn’t mean them. Trump won’t really deport 20 million people. Chuckle, chuckle.

There’s a fucking deportation plan already in place, and Trump loyalists are already working on the details.

Not that you are going to click on those links, or are even reading this, because the raw desperation you ooze from every pore over the need for Trump to be right (because he’s your last salvation from being as pathetic as you think you are) means that you can’t allow yourself to read this.

America, we need to get over our colonialist bullshit. We keep grinding millions into the dust so that 10 people can be richer than dreams. When will we ever learn that if we bury racism and misogyny and air out that “hatred of the other” closet, EVERYBODY WINS. And not even in a tra-la-la love thy neighbor way (although, shouldn’t that be enough, you hypocritical Christian jerks?). In a clearcut economic way:

The economy thrived after World War II in large part because America made it easier for people who had been previously shut out of economic opportunity — women, minority groups, immigrants — to enter the work force and climb the economic ladder, to make better use of their talents and potential.

The Real Reason the Economy Boomed After World War II

White women? Can we talk?

Girl. You blew it. You fucking blew it so big your daughters are going to pay the price of your internalized misogyny for generations. Get some fucking therapy, for the love of all that’s holy, and dump that guy that keeps low-key abusing you. Figure. Your. Shit. Out. You don’t need to hide under that patriarchal umbrella anymore. If you get your nose out of that serial killer romance book for five fucking seconds, you’d realize that you could try relying on each other—you know, other women—for support and that would actually be enough. You’re the only ones who can heal yourselves from centuries of abuse. Stop diminishing yourselves by stuffing yourself back in the victim box—that shit is tired and done. Stop using the power you have to club everyone else over the fucking head—victim turned abuser isn’t a good look on anyone.

Be better. You all need to be. better.

I’m done.

Done done. I’m done being afraid. I’m done being appalled or surprised. I’m done with the second-guessing—aren’t you done with it? Trying to figure out how to be a good consumer, a conscientious citizen, how to say the right best thing. I’m tired of stopping myself from doing because the forces of the Internet could rise against me. It all seems like ridiculous fears now that the real nightmare is around the corner. We are living in a shitshow, and pretending that as one lone human we can somehow, magically, effect systemic change. Stop it! I’m sorry, but you’re not Wonder Woman. Or Superman. Or even Katness. You aren’t the hero of your own story.

We are.

That’s the thing, my darlings. We can’t do anything alone. No one can. Not even Trump. Not even that doomsday prepper out in the woods living off the grid. Did he build that solar panel himself? Did she manufacture that pump for her well on her own? No. We live in community. Whether we like it or not. We are all dependent on each other.

Which an awful lot of very powerful entities are really insistent on saying is a terrible thing. Self-reliance is the American way. Independence is freedom. And the first thing you should do to be really super independent is buy this truck so you can get big jobs done! And buy this battery, it’s really helpful. And here’s a top ten list of the things you should buy to make homesteading so easy!

I recently joined a writing mentorship to finally get some help learning how to write a novel. The mentorship provides community and the expertise of a book coach to help me through the craft, skill, and emotions it takes to write well. It’s providing me with a creative process that I can make my own as I create more and more. And the writing is happening now. I don’t wake up uncertain and lost and in doubt about what to do next every morning. It’s magic.

Getting help and creating with others is magic. Community is magic.

Today, right after this election, it’s really simple for me. You either stand for building all communities up, or you stand for ripping them all apart. Because whether we like it or not, we are all in community, and what happens to one affects us all. If you think that’s not true, scroll back up to the top. That’s where our rugged individualism has gotten us. This is the last stop on Manifest Destiny’s train. It’s a fucking hellscape.

We’ve got to figure out how to live together. 250 years on, it’s about fucking time, don’t you think?

Imagination

I listened to a NY Times reaction podcast recorded the night of the election, and Astead Herndon said this phrase multiple times: there was a failure of imagination. On both sides, and among voters. A failure of imagination.

Did you know there’s like no conservative / Republican fiction? Very little TV shows or movies or books. If you are hardcore conservative, the only stories you are consuming are political messaging. That’s not art, it’s calculated programming.

For you liberals, how much fiction are you consuming? Or how much are you voluntarily submitting yourself to political messaging, day in and day out?

We need to imagine better. We need to imagine what thriving looks like for everyone—in detail. We have to stop wishing we will one day be in the one quarter of one half of one percent where we can buy happiness. Have you considered that maybe you deserve happiness right now? Not some theoretical maybe later? And so do all your friends, relations, acquaintances, community?

We need to imagine what a good life looks like when it’s sustainable. What clothes look like when they aren’t made of plastic. Post-money societies. Post-economy societies! What life looks like when we repair these broken community bonds and leave the othering behind. What does life look like when everyone feels safe and secure? Don’t you want that dream? Doesn’t it make your soul ache to think about living your whole life feeling safe 90% of the time? Until we think and dream about what that could possibly look like, there’s no way to get there.

We need to use our individual imaginations. But more importantly, we need to imagine together. That’s what I want to do. Somehow. In small ways. In large ways. I don’t know more than that right now. I just know we have to do it.

Keep yourselves safe out there. And I’m sorry, and I’m exhausted too.

💖 💖 💖 💖,

Amanda

(Elnora is a pen name, by the way. Hello there.)