Belated processing of the US election
Dec. 11th, 2024 04:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lokifanApparently I just can’t get past the need to do a reaction post to this…
This time it surprised me. I think that’s the other way round for a lot of people. I remember in 2016, I went to see my grandpa with my mum and younger sister on the day of the American election. They were sure Clinton would win, and I was like “...well. Brexit.” I was grimly expecting it, after Brexit and the way the EU had been over Catalonia’s independence referendum; my memory of summer 2016 is a series of parties where we’d talk about other things for half an hour and then dive back into furious discussion of politics. The Spanish police broke the hand and fingers of a friend of one of my students; my BFF’s Portuguese mother, who fought in the revolution against Salazar, said grimly that the Spanish police had always been more brutal. British judges were ‘enemies of the people’. Things didn’t seem to be going well, basically.
This time… there were moments I lost hope. The first assassination attempt on Trump - I thought he’d won in that moment, actually. But then people seemed to forget almost immediately, and Harris/Walz seemed great, and by so many measures the American economy was doing well. The Biden administration had achieved a lot. Women were voting early in much higher numbers than men; young men seemed to have turned against Harris, but older white women were turning towards her, and they vote more often.
I still can’t believe it. The popular vote. Every swing state. Inflation’s massive anti-incumbency effect is clearly part of it, but Trump ran a campaign that seemed… so incredibly weird? Ineffective, going to weird places, all the endless podcasts. He’s obviously deteriorated further, too. It’s just such a brutal refusal to see authority belonging to a woman of colour as legitimate.
The day after I woke up at 5am from a restless sleep and checked my phone. The same way I found out about Brexit - waking at 5am to see a row of crying emojis from my BFF and feeling my chest go cold.
When Trump won in 2016 I spent a lot of my day listening to Beyonce and texting the American guy I was going out with at the time. This time, I was exhausted by sadness. I spent the morning mostly in bed. It was lucky that my friendkabal42 was visiting from Oz; he, I, and my flatmate sodsta went round Regent Street to look at fancy tailored suits, and found a brightly-decorated Turkish restaurant. It was fun and distracting.
We went into Fortnum and Mason’s to look at all their weird expensive stuff, and I eavesdropped on two pairs of American women talking about the election. One pair seemed all in favour, and were talking about how unfair the media had been to Trump; one of the other pair, younger, brought up ‘grab them by the pussy’ and that maybe context wasn’t that crucial. I wasn’t infuriated, listening, until they all congratulated each other on being able to have a civil conversation about politics. They were white, and wealthy enough for a holiday in London. Of course they were able to be civil. They can afford healthcare and a flight somewhere for an abortion.
We got back late and I felt very guilty - our third flatmate’s American and I was worried we’d abandoned her. But she didn’t seem angry; she does generally like to process this kind of stuff alone. She’s considering giving up her American citizenship.
Thursday was rough too, but then I went off on an annual trip with friends which was wonderful. But still; this time feels more like grieving.
Just. I’d thought we still had a chance at 2C.
This time it surprised me. I think that’s the other way round for a lot of people. I remember in 2016, I went to see my grandpa with my mum and younger sister on the day of the American election. They were sure Clinton would win, and I was like “...well. Brexit.” I was grimly expecting it, after Brexit and the way the EU had been over Catalonia’s independence referendum; my memory of summer 2016 is a series of parties where we’d talk about other things for half an hour and then dive back into furious discussion of politics. The Spanish police broke the hand and fingers of a friend of one of my students; my BFF’s Portuguese mother, who fought in the revolution against Salazar, said grimly that the Spanish police had always been more brutal. British judges were ‘enemies of the people’. Things didn’t seem to be going well, basically.
This time… there were moments I lost hope. The first assassination attempt on Trump - I thought he’d won in that moment, actually. But then people seemed to forget almost immediately, and Harris/Walz seemed great, and by so many measures the American economy was doing well. The Biden administration had achieved a lot. Women were voting early in much higher numbers than men; young men seemed to have turned against Harris, but older white women were turning towards her, and they vote more often.
I still can’t believe it. The popular vote. Every swing state. Inflation’s massive anti-incumbency effect is clearly part of it, but Trump ran a campaign that seemed… so incredibly weird? Ineffective, going to weird places, all the endless podcasts. He’s obviously deteriorated further, too. It’s just such a brutal refusal to see authority belonging to a woman of colour as legitimate.
The day after I woke up at 5am from a restless sleep and checked my phone. The same way I found out about Brexit - waking at 5am to see a row of crying emojis from my BFF and feeling my chest go cold.
When Trump won in 2016 I spent a lot of my day listening to Beyonce and texting the American guy I was going out with at the time. This time, I was exhausted by sadness. I spent the morning mostly in bed. It was lucky that my friend
kabal42 was visiting from Oz; he, I, and my flatmate sodsta went round Regent Street to look at fancy tailored suits, and found a brightly-decorated Turkish restaurant. It was fun and distracting.We went into Fortnum and Mason’s to look at all their weird expensive stuff, and I eavesdropped on two pairs of American women talking about the election. One pair seemed all in favour, and were talking about how unfair the media had been to Trump; one of the other pair, younger, brought up ‘grab them by the pussy’ and that maybe context wasn’t that crucial. I wasn’t infuriated, listening, until they all congratulated each other on being able to have a civil conversation about politics. They were white, and wealthy enough for a holiday in London. Of course they were able to be civil. They can afford healthcare and a flight somewhere for an abortion.
We got back late and I felt very guilty - our third flatmate’s American and I was worried we’d abandoned her. But she didn’t seem angry; she does generally like to process this kind of stuff alone. She’s considering giving up her American citizenship.
Thursday was rough too, but then I went off on an annual trip with friends which was wonderful. But still; this time feels more like grieving.
Just. I’d thought we still had a chance at 2C.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-11 07:45 pm (UTC)Absolutely agreed. It's appalling.
. Also, as someone in touch with western left of centre politics I'm very aware that Nice Middle-Class Liberals relentlessly sabotage precisely those groups who have historically proved effective against the rise of fascism (with small edge-case exceptions for some Nice White feminisms), while wailing and wringing their hands ineffectively about the aforementioned rise of fascism.
Absolutely.
And I don't think the Democrats would've won if their candidate hadn't been a WoC either, that's merely the standard Nice Middle-Class Liberal racist backlash (the same MM-CL racism that blamed Trump's initial win on Obama being Black which wasn't true either - at least blame Obama for what he actually did and failed to do).
Idk - I'm very doubtful that the Democrats would've won with a candidate who wasn't a WOC myself, but I don't think saying they would have is necessarily blaming it on Harris. Trump has clearly benefited from and used to his advantage sexism and racism. But yeah obvs it becomes part of the same old "she isn't electable" thing for some people.
no subject
Date: 2024-12-11 08:19 pm (UTC)E.g. Tim Walz, the Democrats preferred white male representative, didn't have to make a public statement of support for a mass murderer generally unpopular amongst USian voters but he chose to do so because to him publicly supporting the normalcy of corporate mass murder of USians is important.
And, no, as I said about Obama in my first comment, telling the truth about Harris' disadvantages, actions, and failures to act, isn't racist but claiming the only way to win against a fascist candidate is to exclude Black people from public life is racist and is a response I've repeatedly seen from Nice Middle-Class Liberals (without looking for it).
no subject
Date: 2024-12-12 12:24 pm (UTC)Oh yeah, same :(