...So, how did we get here?

Where were you when you discovered Donald Trump got re-elected over Kamala Harris?

I woke up at around 3:30 am in the morning the day after the election, two and a half hours before my alarm to wake up and get ready for work. I had this sinking pit in my stomach about the results, despite going to bed assuming the first couple of calls for southeastern states was the typical red mirage that happens regardless of where the election is going to head. A part of me wanted to roll over and just brush off the urge to check on the results. That part did not win however, as I rolled off of my living room mattress that I passed out in rather than the main bed that is meant to be where I sleep checked my social media. First thing I had opened was Discord since it opens automatically. I got a first DMs in the middle of the night, but I get those semi-often in typical mornings. The first DM I opened was from a trans friend of mine in Kansas City, and it only had one word in the message:

“Fuck.”

This is a word I feel like a lot of people have become accustomed to in their day to day lives the last week or two as they mentally brace for this day to day living to, possibly very suddenly but inevitably, change. Every cabinet position pick, every delayed confirmation of another Republican winning another congressional race, every news article about the worst people you heard of in your time hyperfixating on politics over this very election gloating about how change is going to come and ‘the wokies’ aren’t going to like it. A common utterance that grows more common as the time ticks down on this American age of Neoliberalism.

A lot of people feeling like they have just woken up from a hangover with how dazed and confused by what happened. A lot of people are, quite literally, waking up from hangovers over and over and over because they are drinking away the nights in vain that they will wake up to a world where America did not elect a fascistic criminal hellbent on getting revenge on a system that put him on trial, cost him millions of dollars, and (in his mind) stole an election from him and tried gunning him down for correcting it. These people will keep waking up in our world, over and over and over, each time becoming more and more unequipped to prepare for what is to come.

Despite having a lot, and I mean a LOT, to get ready for in the future… most of us are stuck in the past. Myself included, albeit not in the same way others might be. People day by day, event by event, announcement by announcement from the President-Elect, are repeating the same question: How? How did we get here? How did Trump win again? How does his base keep buying into his blatant lies and clear manipulation of them? How did over ten million people who voted in 2020 simply stayed home this time around? How did this man actually win the popular vote this time?

There has been a lot of opinions on the matter. A lot of takes. A lot of numbers thrown around. A lot of theories on what does or doesn’t work anymore when figuring out election. A lot of fingers being pointed as a possible cause of all this. A lot of scapegoats being made by people who need someone or some group to blame for all of this…

There have been a lot of post-mortems about this election.

Enough of which that I, a 20-something college dropout who has been involved with politics since getting on their Papa’s lap every morning before school to watch Imus in the Morning (which became Morning Joe when Mr. Imus had certain things to say about Rutgers women’s basketball team), cannot simply bite my tongue about all of them or vent about them drip by drip in random forums and social media platforms. My soul is too vast or whatever it is people say when this wave of self-righteousness hits them like it’s been hitting me lately. I need to actually express these thoughts in detail. I want to pick apart these errant post-mortems piece by piece, especially the ones I deeply disagree with. I want to take all these metanarratives about an election that did not have the storybook ending people from the left and center wanted and chew on them like a dog with some rope. I need to make my word heard, but my accent is too thick for most to understand so I will type it.

The objective of this newsletter, outside of giving me a pit to throw my political thoughts into so I can continue presenting the outside world someone who isn’t losing their mind over the future, is to dissect the main and popular metanarratives/talking points/coping mechanisms that are being pedaled in a myriad of post-mortems and op-eds about Trump’s victory over the status quo and normalcy and tell you my totally precious and valuable thoughts on them. Also, what I personally think went right or wrong about the election for both campaigns and where I think the Democrats should go from here (the GOP doesn’t need any given they kind of won). Once every two weeks on no set day, my goal is to take a popular opinion or take of how Harris lost or Trump won and what that means about the state of US politics now and going forward and pick it apart systematically to see how well it holds up. Unless the opinion disgusts me of course, and then I will tear it apart viciously. Hopefully, in the best case, this newsletter will reach down to people far and wide and with these words I can help forge a successful midterm rally and a 2028 victory… if we still have election by then (or a country). Realistically, this will be a place to take my frustrations out on an election that fell into the wrong hands and at the people who should have done better as well as find out for myself if there was ever such a thing as a Harris victory in the cards at all.

Until then, see you when I see you.