Grieve the 2024 Elections Like You Love the World

On November 6, 2024, Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency for the second time in 8 years, one of very few presidents to win a non-consecutive second term. It not only broke my heart, Trump’s ascendency back into the executive office unanchored progressive and Left strategy and fractured multi-racial solidarity. The economic, political and social conditions – and the deliberate dirty tactics – that led to extreme levels of polarization, voter disenfranchisement, and one of the most depressed voter turnouts in recent history could be seen as a maladaptation to loss. In a nation and hemisphere built on the denial of the genocide of Indigenous Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans throughout the Americas – Trump’s victory could be understood as a nation’s refusal to grieve, and instead to displace the transformative power of grief with the rage of grievance.

There are four reasons I believe this.

One, this election broke the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Black women, 92% of whom voted for Kamala Harris in the hopes that she would become the first Black woman to lead this nation. For many, the ascendency of Barack Obama as the first Black person to achieve that goal was meaningful. It signified a level of inclusion into the empire. For me, it was both thrilling and terrifying, because I don’t want to be included in the empire, but neither do I want to be excluded from or exploited by it. I was born a girl, and while my gender has expanded into a queer masc identity with the pronouns they/them and sometimes he, I deeply identify with Black women. I understand why this election hurt. I am Leftist, so Harris’ loss didn't cause me to question the Democratic Party – I see that Party as a means to an end, and more often a barrier to the end. As a strategist and a community organizer I aim to use every tool available in the cause of fighting fascism and ending racial capitalism. I have no love for Democrats, and yet the distance between the rhetoric and reality still stung. The fact that this Party which has relied so heavily on the participation and leadership of Black women in America would ignore their needs and demands, even from their own elected representatives, to the peril of the entire nation and perhaps the world, yeah…. That hurt. In that hurt, all kinds of multimedia content emerged blaming Harris’ loss on three groups of people: a) Black men, b) Latino voters, c) Palestinians and the Palestine solidarity movement, and d) third-party voters. These constituency groups were blamed because in some cases there was an uptick in votes for Trump amongst them.

There are a few problems with the direction of this righteous rage. One, most Latinos voted for Harris, and while the uptick in Latino support for Trump amongst Latino men is deeply concerning, the 11 million undocumented people Trump is going after had no vote. Let’s talk about it.

Two, Palestinian voters in Michigan and third party voters did not hand Trump the election. 100% of that vote, given the overall numbers, would not have won the election for Harris. Let’s talk about it.

Three, the Democratic Party failed to listen to its base, failed to embrace economic populism, failed to honor its Black voters or protect its Black lawmakers, presided over a genocide, and moved itself center-right. Those are strategic failures perpetrated by that institution which, in addition to losing the presidency also weakened the Left’s ability to influence policy - the rules that organize power and set many of our conditions. The Left did not abandon the Party, they abandoned us. Let’s talk about it.

These are facts that can be researched and corroborated. Black women have every right to be enraged, to feel abandoned and betrayed – they were. But not by undocumented people, Palestinians, Black men and people frustrated by the Democratic Party. Black women were abandoned by the Democratic Party and directly targeted by the Republican Party. The loss wasn’t the presidency, what was lost was ground, a path to power building, a future. And, that is cause for grief.

But this is a nation that has taught us all to displace grief for blame. This displacement of grief is the essence of right wing wedge strategies. Take your grief, they say, bury it inside your rage. Blame others with as little power as you have, align with those with much much more. That is the danger now, and unseen forces are exploiting that danger.

In the direct aftermath of the presidential election, videos began popping up on social media depicting Black women sipping from Starbucks cups, claiming to be excited to purchase a condo in Gaza in retaliation for a perceived lack of support for Harris’ campaign by the Uncommitted Movement. These videos also depicted Black women standing by while undocumented people were captured by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in some cases pretending to call ICE on them. The videos proclaimed that the next time a Black man was killed by the police there would be no march and that the body would be left in the street. An AI generated image (likely by an online hate group) depicted young Black women sitting atop a building sipping from Starbucks cups while a city burns around them. The front of one woman’s shirt says 92%, while the back of another woman’s shirt says 311, a well known online hate symbol for the KKK. Many people I deeply respect defended these videos and images as part of a deep seated belief that this was simply an expression of a fair and righteous rage, a principle that since these voting blocs did not stand for Black women, Black women would no longer stand for them.

At the same time, H.R. 9495, aka the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, passed the House, mostly along partisan lines (though 15 Democrats voted for the bill). If it passes the Senate, H.R. 9495 will allow a presidentially appointed treasury secretary to unilaterally strip a nonprofit of its status if deemed a “terrorism-supporting” organization, giving the federal government the power to investigate and effectively shut down any tax-exempt organization — including news outlets, universities, and civil society groups — by stripping them of tax-exempt status based on a unilateral accusation. While aimed at disrupting the Palestine solidarity movement, this bill sets us up for repression of Left, progressive and community-based groups across the spectrum. The measure, formally named the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, has implications far beyond the Palestine solidarity movement, but has hardly been discussed outside of those spaces because, right now, too many believe that transactional liberation is possible – it isn’t. 

This is a sorrow I feel deep in my bones. I hate that somehow the very valid frustration of Black women at the deliberate fracturing of solidarity amongst oppressed people right now is being rendered as resignation to letting the world burn. Taken to its extreme is a fascist’s dream and a grief bypass. Rather than mourning the fracture of a centuries old “rainbow coalition” and the trading in of neoliberal democracy in favor of authoritarianism — some are deciding that nihilism, hopelessness and blame is more appropriate than grieving, more appropriate than acknowledging loss and sorrow and rage, more appropriate than making room for something more liberatory than neoliberal democracy, than nationalism, than racial capitalism.

Grief is the antidote to authoritarianism. It is an embodied response to all this election season took from us, and leverages the only true path to power. Grief lays the road to memory, reminds us of our linked fate, and ignites our empathy. Grief allows sorrow and activates collective action. It moves each of us from subject to protagonist.  

Black women are angry and have every right to be, it makes sense. Black women have held so much for so many for so long. Working class people are angry, and have every right to be, we have held this nation together through our exploited labor. We have donated our dead. We have cried and cried and cried. The challenge is when we allow ourselves to bypass grief and go straight to resentment, we play into fascism’s hand. Let us make meaning from this loss, knowing it isn’t simply an electoral loss, the election was just a symptom, a sign that we have lost ground - but we can regain it. Let’s talk about how.

We need to make real space to discuss how we got here, real space to unpack the contradictions between identity and power, real space for the rage and disappointment that is inevitable when a vast majority of Black folks vote in an attempt to gain some measure of freedom (however narrow and neoliberal) and white supremacy, patriarchy and nativism/nationalism win the day. But please remember - there are millions who remain aligned with the cause of freedom, justice and peace. For those of us who feel ourselves responsible for the future not simply to be acted upon or subjugated by it, our job is to grieve as radicals grieve. We must lay a path to catalyze grief into grievance and a strategy to win our people back following the mass losses of the pandemic, the genocide against Palestinians, the routine state and vigilante violence faced by Black people, and more — all witnessed by a populace held hostage by late stage capitalism.

The conditions have changed, the assignment remains the same: Block. Build. Bridge. And yes, the details matter. Shout out to the organizations and leaders who already know that and are already doing the work to lay that path. You know who you are. I will follow you and lead beside you in my lane.

Rather than wish great harm to those who Trump peeled off in alignment with the right wing, we must continue to align with our vision and values and move forward a multifaceted strategy that requires inside and outside work, alternatives and resistance, governance and being ungovernable. I am interested in diagnosis but not blame. It’s totally useless and does not help our people. We must do what we can to allow our sorrow and rage to get grounded in our vision and values. I ain’t mad at taking a minute. We might need a minute. But take the time, recenter, regulate your body and spirit, and whenever you are able to, listen.

In solidarity with Black women and communities.

In solidarity with queer and trans people.

In solidarity with poor and working class people.

In solidarity with the undocumented.

In solidarity with Palestinians and Arabs.

In solidarity with the Indigenous.

In solidarity with the disabled.

In solidarity with the living earth.

Black women have been at the forefront of every liberation struggle since the dawn of the imperial project called the United States, and Black women will likely lead the path to freedom for everyone. That is structural, historical, and important but not inherent.

Bottom line: the ruling class always tries to fracture our solidarity, and I will never aid them, nor will I sit back and watch the world burn. There is no watching - there’s only fighting the fire or burning with it.

Like Fred Hampton said, “We are the people, we are not the pig.”

Sometimes I find it’s helpful to remind myself of that. We are the strategic Left. The invitation is to grieve the elections like you love the world, because I know you do. 

Post the November 2024 election, let transformative grief do its good work to rebuild our solidarity and lay a strategic path to victory.