Overview: The 2024 Presidential Election saw the Trump/Vance ticket win both the Electoral College and the popular vote, despite the Harris/Walz campaign having 4.9 million individual donors. The election results have left many in shock. The Harris/Walz campaign fell short. The nation remains divided by misogyny and racism, which may have played a significant role in the outcome. The question remains: Is this America?
S.E. Williams
On Tuesday, October 22, the Financial Times reported the Harris/Walz campaign had 4.9 million individual donors. This dwarfed the 1.37 million individual donors who had, at that point barely two weeks before the November 5, 2024 Presidential Election, donated in support of the Trump/Vance ticket. This reflected a difference of nearly 3.5 million more individuals who willingly put money behind the Harris/Walz mission. We would soon learn, however, that this was no indication of success.
Election Day revealed a different reality. Preference for the Trump/Waltz ticket won out. The polls were always close, the pundits had warned. By Friday afternoon, well after the race was officially called for the Trump/Vance ticket, the popular vote showed a clear 3.5 million vote advantage for Donald Trump. A stark difference from recent presidential elections, where Democrats held a clear advantage in the popular vote even when Trump won the Electoral College in 2016.
And so now, we get the government we deserve.
Everyone is in the process of analyzing what went wrong, pointing the finger at this group and that; at what the Harris/Watz campaign—once heralded as the best managed campaign in history—did or did not do right; at what racial demographic voted this way or that way; questioning how some contingencies could pass new abortion guidelines in their states and yet still vote for in favor of the man most responsible for the destruction of Roe v Wade.
“Facing the rising sun of our new day begun; let us march on til victory is won.”
James Weldon Johnson
In my estimation we can try to point to ten thousand reasons. The bottom line to me is that this nation remains caught in the grips misogyny (the reason Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016) and racism. Misogyny and racism combined was a strong headwind for Harris to overcome.
What’s come to me again and again since the election is the same question Fannie Lou Hamer proposed to the nation 60 years ago during the 1964 Democratic National Convention, “Is this America?”
At that time, there was a sense of urgency for change and Hamer tugged at the consciousness of America, challenging its citizens to live up to the nation’s promise.
This year, there was also a sense of urgency for change though motivated by reasons diametrically opposed to what drove the urgency sensed by Hamer. On the one hand, V.P. Kamala Harris offered change in the terms of optimism and a different sense of urgency as it relates to opportunity and a commitment to work toward bridging the differences between us as a nation of disparate peoples, ideas, philosophies and theologies. On the other hand, President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised a plethora of actions intended to separate, advantage the wealthiest among us, cut policies and programs that help the working class and the poor, re-implement failed policing policies; mass deportation and the list goes on.
Regardless, the election results are what they are. America has elected a racist, misogynistic, fraudster and sexual abuser, who currently stands convicted of 34 felonies.
Where we go from here depends on us as a community and our willingness to continue working together for the common good of our region regardless of what may come our way with the new administration.
Will Trump become a dictator as feared or will America (and the world) merely be forced to endure another four years of a “perpetual dog and pony show” with the hope that nothing blows up, falls down, makes us sick or kills us.
At this point it is important that regardless of this setback, we continue working for a better future, we must remember what the ancestors said, “This too shall pass.”
Of course, this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.
