Let me start by saying this: I did not wake up as a woman in America today, which means I did not wake up feeling terrified over losing the autonomy over my body. Reproductive health care is still a fundamental right that I have access to – for now – which allows me to observe the horrifying results with a certain level of distance.
That being said, when it comes to my personal feelings over the 2024 U.S. Presidential election, I have to say that I simply don’t have it in me to despair. I don’t have the energy to. Yes, as someone who works in climate advocacy, I am terrified about what this means for our ability to keep global temperatures within a range that does not cause destruction ten-fold more horrifying than what we are witnessing now. My hope is diminished; I am tired and concerned for the future. The chances of securing a liveable future just became much, much smaller. I am also worried for minorities in the U.S.; I am heartbroken for migrant families who are going to be torn apart, survivors of abuse who will have to carry out unwanted pregnancies and people of colour who will continue to be victims of police brutality, with little hope of justice.
At the same time, I also have to admit that I was not ready to celebrate a win for the version of feminism that the Harris campaign was shoving down our throats: a version of feminism that talks about breaking glass ceilings while climbing over the bodies of Middle Eastern women and their babies. I was not ready to celebrate a form of justice that includes plans to invest in fracking when it is minorities, especially African Americans, that disproportionately live near fracking wells. That fails to deliver a real plan to halt fossil fuel expansion, which continues to kill thousands around the globe – and in the U.S.
It has been this willingness to accept the bare minimum from our leaders that has brought us here. Did I want Kamala to win? Was she the better choice? Did I wish that Trump was not allowed back into the White House? Yes, yes and yes. But the truth is, fascism has arrived in the U.S., And it surrounds us everywhere here in Europe, too. We will likely find ourselves in a very similar political landscape in our next General Elections here in the U.K. if the Labour government fails to deliver the radical measures needed to improve people’s lives.
The rise of right-wing populism is not news to anybody. So, personally, I am too tired to act surprised. America will do what America will do. We didn’t wake up in a new world, and pretending like we did does us all a disservice. The shift towards the right we observe in so many countries worldwide has been brewing in our communities for a long time. If we want to beat fascism, we need to move away from the social disconnection we have normalised in modern society. Too often, progressives say they want to create a community of belonging when what they are doing is creating a community of affinity. But our refusal to sit in the uncomfortableness of engaging with those who disagree with us has us living in a dangerous bubble about to burst. In America, it just has. The America that re-elected Donald Trump is the America that has been building over the last four years, and yet, too many on the ‘left’ are surprised.
But how can this be the case? Has our complacency actually gone this far? Have we become this numb to the disasters we witness daily while we go on with our daily lives, pretending everything is fine as long as catastrophe hasn’t hit us personally yet? Take women’s rights: Are you genuinely trying to tell me you are shocked that people will vote for a sexual offender? Did you believe the world was a safe place for women? Having grown up in Brazil and being surrounded by women who had to fight like hell for every single right they had, every ‘privilege’ they experienced, I have always been very aware that my rights as a woman, including my right to education, access to contraception, to have a bank account, to choose my relationships freely, to speak my mind, are not to be taken for granted. I am not saying it should be this way. I am infuriated every single day that this is the case. But I think it is naive to pretend otherwise, and it is time women in the West wake up to this reality. We still live in a patriarchal system. We have not yet won, and it is irresponsible to continue to act like we have.
Because the truth is, our leaders are not coming to save us. Let us not pretend that Kamala Harris would have delivered us to liberation and climate justice. The work continues. It would have always continued. But also let us not lie to ourselves: it was crucial to get her into office, or mostly, to keep Donald Trump out of it. If you are involved in movement building or working to bring about a better and more liberated future for all of us, you must know how to be pragmatic. We cannot let perfection be the enemy of progress. That is quite different from accepting the bare minimum – it is about understanding the strategically possible next step you can take, which will help advance your goals, minimise harm and, most importantly, allow you to continue to push for change and make yourself heard.
Things are going to get significantly more complicated from here. But the work continues. It always would have continued. I am not saying this because I want you to give up hope. I believe that the way to maintain hope and achieve real change is to face things as they are and keep doing the work anyway. It is the pretending that everything is fine, that things would never get this bad, that ‘no one in their right mind would vote for this’, and that somehow, someone will come up with a solution to the climate crisis that has gotten us here. But it is us. There has always been just us.
In Political Science, we distinguish between ‘normative’ theory, which looks at how things should be, and ‘empirical’ theory, which focuses on how things are right now, how our global systems currently work. Effective liberation work lies somewhere in the middle: choosing to believe that there is a better way, but not being afraid of acknowledging things as they are. This allows us to find the weak spots in the system, engage with affected communities to find common ground and push for the change we envision.
This is why, personally and from my privileged position, I will not allow myself to become disillusioned by this. I will not let it drain my energy. Of course, whatever your emotional response to this election is, it is valid, especially if you or your loved ones are less safe because of it. Politics is inherently personal. So grieve, cry, be enraged, feel whatever it is that you need to feel. In my case, I will not let this distract me for too long. I will go back to my work in climate advocacy. I will continue to nurture critical thinking in young people and empower them to understand the power they hold to make changes in their communities. And I will find new ways to continue to make changes in mine.
So once you come out of your grief, once you have processed all that you need to process, what I ask of you is this: dream of a future that is better than the one that was on the ballot this year. And do everything in your power to bring it about.
