The morning after

We knew some things — some of us did — but they were the wrong things. We knew he was corrupt and incompetent. That he attempted a coup to stay in power. That he brims with hate, that his singular political skill is to channel the frustrations and disaffections of daily life into blame and resentment of an inchoate Other; an Other that is always both vague and yet salient enough to be identifiable to different groups as different things — women for young men, godless commies for religious reactionaries, “bad immigrants” for the self-identified good ones, trans people for the socially insecure, etc — and yet somehow mesh together into a sloppy, seamless imaginary whole. I listened to pundits and pollsters who swore that a large and uncounted swing of voters would reject all that, if not in the name of universal human, then at least reproductive and voting rights. It turned out they were telling me what I wanted to hear.

We knew that there were economic “headwinds,” as the wags say — that yes, unemployment was low, and yes inflation was back roughly to what it was in 2019, before the years of mass sickness and death that can scarcely be mentioned on the political stage; but that rising wages were in many cases only barely keeping up with inflation, especially for renters and families with children. We knew that environmental catastrophe and war were creating increased migration from the poorer world to the old imperial metropoles.

And we knew that all of those headwinds had created a deadly environment for incumbents all over the world. This was true all over, by the way, with little regard for ideological consistency: whether it was center-right incumbents being bludgeoned in the U.K. by the center-left and France by the left and far-right, or calcified former freedom fighters like the African National Congress in South Africa being beaten by seemingly everyone, or even fellow authoritarians like the party of India’s Narendra Modi taking a bath at the hands of its liberal rivals. I hoped, I guess, that the switch in candidates at the top of the Democratic ticket might cure that trend somehow. That and the fact that, under Biden we had, believe it or not, done better than our “peer” nations, setting up a continued recovery without the need for even a recession. Now our last-and-next president will again reap the benefits of that moment of competence.

The thing I knew most of all, the thing that is the most embarrassing to confront in the cold light of this unnervingly hot November day, was the lesson that decades of imperialist violence and dehumanization abroad comes home, sure as the sun, in the form of fascism. I wrote a whole book about it, a book that is still very much in print. For years I was bellowing at anyone who would listen: No, we are not immune. Yes, it can happen here. There were many off-ramps we could have taken. I wanted to believe, even still, at this late date, that somehow a loud enough series of warnings — from the former president’s former staffers, from the former president on the campaign trail himself — would spur enough people in enough states into action. What I did not know, and what I should have known, is that these warnings wouldn’t be enough. We will know soon enough if the critical margin who meandered into his camp, and those who did not go to the polls, understood what they voted for and will like it once they see it in action. But for now, it was not a dealbreaker, and that was enough.

What I truly don’t know is what happens now. Some are turning to quotes and poets for solace. Others are already organizing, preparing, making community. It is far too soon to say what it all means, even what the full picture of the electorate looks like — if for instance, he will, as it appears he might, win the popular vote. The main thing I’m keeping in mind is that this is the same country it was yesterday. We are just now seeing it in a new light. Tens of millions invited this future in, yes, but ten of millions more tried to choose a different path. We may be more constrained in making them now. But there will still be many more choices to come.