It’s President Trump after all. Despite his misogyny, his associations with racists, his utter lack of transparency, and a flood of polls that predicted a Clinton win and an actual popular vote victory for Clinton, Trump is now the president-elect.
A reality TV star is the Electoral College winner in an election where the Russians and the FBI both had their thumb on the scale, people were literally making up stuff, calling it news, and putting it on the internet, and more voters actually chose Hillary Clinton.
Trump will be the fifth president who lost the popular vote while winning the Electoral College. John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush all became president with less than half of the popular vote. Clinton will lose despite having at least 2.2 million more voters in her corner. Al Gore also won the popular vote in 2000 – but his margin was 540,520. I don’t really have an opinion on the first three, but I am sure that Gore would had been a better president in 2001.
Under the Bush presidency, the country went to war and blew through the surplus that was left by Bill Clinton. The tax code tilted toward the rich while the poor were ignored. Climate change was pooh-poohed. We went into the deepest recession that the country has experienced since the Great Depression.
President Obama, with no cooperation from the Republicans, brought us back from the brink of economic collapse. I don’t need to reiterate all of his accomplishments, but what he did get done was in the face of unprecedented Republican intransigence. He has never gotten the credit and, if Trump does what he says he is going to do, much of Obama’s good work will be undone.
But this is where we are – Trump is president-elect and Republicans have majorities in both the House and the Senate.
The five phases of Trump election-induced trauma are incredulity, scorn, despair, anger and resistance. While I may feel all of these emotions at the same time, the most useful one is resistance.
So, what can be done? Well, the first thing to do is to strengthen the institutions and organizations that speak truth to power. That means paying for real news through a subscription, not reading free (and sometimes fake) news on the internet. And it means supporting organizations like the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Lambda Legal, National Immigration Law Center, the Real Cost of Prisons Project, Natural Resources Defense Council, and other organizations that work for justice.
It’s clear that poor people, women, immigrants, people of color, and LGBTQ people are most obviously at risk in a Trump administration. Despite common misconceptions, more of the nation’s poor are white people. Many are working people, and an unconscionable number are children. Our economy is increasingly reliant on immigrants.
And our country always has relied on the labors of African-Americans, first as slaves and now as underpaid workers. We now have a president–elect whose close adviser consorts with white nationalists. We need to build coalitions across race and gender; and we must start talking about class.
As we resist Trumpism, it will be even more necessary to find our commonalities. The Trumpists have been masterful at using our differences to divide us, and we must always keep our eye on the goal.
Nationally, the Democrats need to take back statehouses. After this election, Republicans have 33 governors and they control both legislative chambers in 32 states, 17 with veto-proof majorities. The Democrats, have legislative control in just 13 states, and only four have veto-proof majorities.
Statehouses control redistricting and redistricting decides which party is in control of the U.S. House of Representatives. While congressional Republicans got 49.9 percent of the votes this year, they got 55 percent of the seats. That is the power of redistricting.
On the state level, we need to stay engaged in protecting the policies and programs that aid people in need and support opportunity for all. Early education, great public schools, vocational high schools, and public higher education are door-openers. Fair tax policy lifts up lower wage earners. Universal health care in Massachusetts existed before Obamacare and it can survive Trump.
Finally, we need to support the local organizations that are helping people in our communities. The Amherst and Northampton Survival Centers, the Easthampton Community Center, Franklin County Community Meals Program, and Community Action are the safety net and the door to opportunity for many. The Center for New Americans and the Literacy Project provide education and support for many of our neighbors and friends. Our nonprofits will be counting on all of us for support in this new era.
We have survived worse times than this. We had a Civil War, we survived the Great Depression. But it ultimately will be necessary for us to talk about the things that divide us.
As those conversations happen, I hope we can listen respectfully and look for common ground. I can’t assume that my neighbors and friends agree with me. And if they don’t – then they probably have something to teach me.
Clare Higgins, of Northampton, the city’s former mayor, is executive director of the nonprofit Community Action! of the Franklin, Hampshire and North Quabbin Regions. She writes a monthly column and can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.