Reflecting on the election
On November 5, 2024, America witnessed the beginning of a long night, a night of fear, grief, and anger that signaled the total and utter collapse of the principles on which this nation was created. It was the night Donald Trump became our 47th president, and perhaps our last. He is a man whose ideology seeks to strangle the ideals of liberty, equality, and justice that lay at the heart of America. And as the results rolled in throughout the evening, dread gripped millions of Americans like a vice, we understood the stakes and what would happen. President Trump does not care for the marginalized, the poor, or the vulnerable. He does not care for the tired huddled masses, yearning to be free. His rhetoric and policies are explicitly fascist, and dominated by a clear disdain for human rights and the fundamental concepts of democracy and justice. Not only this but his economic policy will be an abject failure, and dozens of Nobel Prize-winning economics have confirmed this. Yet here we stand, calmly staring down the barrel of a gun loaded with a bullet marked tyranny, aimed at the head of the American people.
Yet this is not the time for despair, nor for us to give up. The history of this nation, the American people, and the history of the world as a whole, is one of resistance. When the Confederacy was on the verge of victory, did President Lincoln surrender the dream of emancipation? No. he fought until his last breath for the cause. When the police in Birmingham unleashed violence on children and protestors, locking Dr. King in a cold cell, did the civil rights movement falter or collapse? No. Just as President Lincoln kept fighting, the civil rights movement rose again, stronger, and more determined. Hundreds of thousands marched into the fire and fury of segregation fueled violence, all for a dream of justice and liberty, a dream Trump intends to destroy.
The election of Trump, and his recent decisions as president, may feel like the killing blow to an era of American progress. With control of Congress and the Supreme Court, the forces of fascist reactionary terror seem perfectly poised to undo the decades of hard-fought victories. However we cannot take this moment as the end of the struggle. Rather, we must take it as the signal to begin a new fight. A fight that can be best defined as a social revolution.
It will not be built with violence, not guns nor bombs; but with the power of our voices, the power of protest and organization. We must embrace the core ideals of progressivism and labour politics. On November 6th, and again on January 20th we opened the door for a fight, the fight for the very soul of this nation. It will not be fought with bombs and bullets, but voices, cameras, keyboards, and a true unwavering defiance to the fascism that seeks to rule us. Trumpism, like all other forms of fascism seeks to destroy our spirit, our sense of hope, and our dream of a free world. We must not let it.
In her concession speech Vice President Harris said “Only in the darkest of nights do the brightest stars shine.” We are in that dark night, and we will be those bright stars. We will be the torchbearers of liberty, justice, freedom, and truth. We must take a stand, not just for ourselves, but for those who cannot. For the students of the future, who will learn about, and ask about, the struggle against fascism in our time. The election of Donald Trump will not define, but the actions we take following it will. Those who stand up and fight, will be defined as heroes. Those who sit down and do nothing, will forever be known as bystanders. Be the one who fights, resist this fascism, or be doomed to the annals of history as a weak fool who let fascism win.