A Moment to Grieve.
The Death of American Democracy.
It’s just another Thursday. Except it isn’t. For many, the world has stood still since Tuesday night or before, as we watched days prior with voters being wiped out from databases, mail-in ballots not mailed in time, ballot boxes burning in Portland, laying on highways in Florida, evidence of tampering near boxes in DC, investigations of possible viral videos with election misinformation coming from Russia.
Those of us that survived Trump the first time know the mixed emotions brought forth by this second win. I witnessed my oldest, freshly turned 18 stay up til 3 am awaiting for the results. I don’t consider myself, much less my children people that romanticize American democracy, the two party system, the heinous idea of the electoral college and every which way they have, throughout history disinfranchised Black, Indigenous, women voters. In my household we educate, agitate and organize, we participate in mutual aid, in showing up for community and each other, my kids see me model community care outside in every form except voting. But they have been taught the concept of voting as a fire extinguisher. So my oldest did their research, learned of local leaders and went with confidence to early vote. The heartbreaking reality, although not shocking, still stung. I saw a small glimmer of hope die in my children’s eyes yesterday and then I saw the same look over and over again, in friends, strangers on the street, people on reels. I can read the concerned tone of my friend’s check-ins. Most people I know and engage with understand how deeply flawed, the system is set up and still show up to alleviate suffering as much as possible to protest and march and even engage in non violent direct action to change. They are also working on onboarding the newly radicalized.
Now more than ever we need to bring in the newly awaken to the oncoming horrors that a christian nationalist majority armed with project 2025 will bring and support their leadership growth in the movement. It does not serve to rub ‘I told you so’ in the face of people dealing with post election anxiety and depression. It will further alienate the people who you will need to work with for the next four to who knows how many years to keep yourself and your community safe. Hard days are ahead: all the things that worked during our first round might not again, that doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t continue sharing skills and knowledge, organizing, and working to shift, pivot and strategize community’s safety.
I fully believe that this is not Trump’s second presidency, this is his first dictatorship (after a failed coup) and we need to act accordingly. But first, lets cry.
We must give people new to this space to grieve the death of their notions of fairness and ‘justice’ and American democracy. We also need to give safe spaces to learn and educate, not just of the history of the American experiment but also outside of the USA. We must let the histories of resistance against colonial rule, against fascism and religious violence across the world guide us and center us in the notion that the US imperial machine has been resisted by working folks across the globe.
And we need to give ourselves a moment to grieve for that small hope that we would have a presidency that would at the very least allow us to continue working to bend the arc of history toward justice as opposed to someone that will undo everything those that came before us were able to win us with their blood, sweat and tears and very lives.
Let us be gentle with ourselves and each other and keep fighting.
As Mother Jones said “Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living.”
Reverend Leonina Arismendi