I don’t know what to say. It’s the morning after Trump won (again), and I’m cleaning up my back porch from the sad election party the night before. The leftover beers are still sitting in an ice chest, and they’re still cold. I want to inhale five of them.
Driving down South Congress in Austin this morning, there were two trucks triumphantly flying giant TRUMP 2024 flags. The men inside were delighted. They got honked at — maybe honks of anger but maybe supportive? Who knows these days. Austin is going through its own weird transformation.
My grandfather was shot by Nazis in France, and we just elected a man who Nazis wholeheartedly support. He survived World War II, but honestly, I’m happy he’s gone now so he wouldn’t have to see this. What’s left for the rest of us? Everything is going to get worse: income inequality, climate change, immigration, women’s rights, everything.
The results from last night are crushing. A New York Times analysis showed that, of the counties with nearly complete results, more than 90% shifted in favor of Trump. He improved on his 2020 margin in more than 2,000 counties. This is a man who joked about shooting the press, who has floated using the military on his political adversaries. But you already know all this.
As a white guy, I am insulated from most of it. I blame myself for not doing more. I blame the media for normalizing and sanewashing a fascist. I blame the Democrats for not speaking to the realities of the working class and for hiding the true — and deteriorating — condition of an 81-year-old man for too long, which put us at a terminal disadvantage to a truly dangerous man.
But he’s also a celebrity and — like it or not — a popular one. Joe Rogan’s interviews with Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance (ugh), and Elon Musk got a combined 72 million views on YouTube.
And here we are. I’m out of ideas. I want to give up (a luxury only the whitest of white dudes can afford).
As a parent, it was tough this morning to break the news that he won — that they all did. That it’s usually like this, especially in Texas.
It’s weird living in a state where the ruling leaders openly dislike you if you disagree with them. None of them will read this, but if they did, they would be overjoyed. In 2024, even the people in charge just want their team to win.
We’re living in dangerous times. I honestly don’t know if America is redeemable.
Falling back on sarcasm, I tweeted, “I can’t believe that a country founded on slavery and genocide would do this.” Not the most original thought, but it’s true.
Someone responded, “Shut up bitch.” I took the advice.
I don’t know if a multicultural society can survive the Internet, where bullshit and misinformation overwhelm all of our usual levees — and journalists don’t know how to keep up. “Counter disinfo feels like the frazzled nerd shaking papers and yelling while everyone else is doing shots and dancing,” the writer Bobby Lewis posted on BlueSky. “Or that ancient meme of someone trying to squeegee the water off the beach back into the ocean.”
I don’t know if it’s possible to stop billionaires from continuing to play working people against each other, even as the inequality deepens and deepens. There will always be a new bogeyman to dangle in front of our faces, always a new enemy, always a reason why things won’t ever get better, always a solution that never actually works.
Most of all, I don’t know if it’s possible to shake people out of complacency when it’s so easy to retreat into our own pleasure cocoons: of endless streaming shows, of video games, of YouTube music videos that remind us of times that were better.
It’s never been easier to give up. Nowadays you can get a steady serotonin drip of fully customized entertainment while the world continues to degrade and schools continue to get shot up and the ocean eats away more of our coasts.
I don’t see any way out of this. But we’re still alive and I tell myself that there’s always (allegedly) hope.
So I’ll try. And while it’s cheesy to end on a slightly positive note, I still want to.
As I doomscrolled Twitter (I will always call it Twitter) this morning, I came across a bit of wisdom from my friend, the comedian and actor Martha Kelly (I hope we’re friends, hi Martha).
She’s one of the smartest, kindest people I know and she wrote this:
“Progress for an individual is a back and forth AT BEST. There is no such thing as positive growth w/o backlash — even the slowest progress still includes TEMPORARY retreats into the horrible familiar,” she wrote. “I think that’s where we are as a country and it SUCKS but I’m not giving up.”
I want to be that kind of person, too. Maybe tomorrow. Today I’m going to just be sad.