As Election Day arrived, I had faith in the United States. I had faith that America would see through the constant lies, division and hate of Donald Trump. I had faith that America would finally elect its first female president in Kamala Harris.
Clearly, that faith was sadly misplaced.
There were those who heeded the call to protect democracy and human rights by casting their vote to preserve what America should be, but they were not in the majority. No, the victory went to Trump, a man with 34 felony convictions, who tried to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power because he lost the previous election.
Perhaps the greatest concern for the next four years is that Trump has now been unchained. In his first term, Trump at least had respected governmental officials working with him in the executive branch who didn’t always follow his demands, including four-star Marine general John Kelly, who served as his chief of staff from 2017 to 2019 and recently called Trump a “fascist.” Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, did his constitutional duty after the 2020 election and certified the results, despite the wishes of his boss. Trump has made sure no such disloyalty will occur in this next term; his new VP, J.D Vance, made a magical turnaround from Trump hater in 2016 to fervent defender eight years later, even asserting Trump did not lose in 2020. In the last election Trump won, a bit of the old guard was still around to try and mediate his worst tendencies, but they are gone in favor of loyalists.
This transformation of the party is also evident in Congress. Mitch McConnell, who has been leader of the Senate Republicans for years and often clashed with Trump, is retiring from the position after this election cycle, opening the Senate to be even more receptive to Trump’s ideas—and Republicans now have a majority in the chamber. The current Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is a wholesale supporter of Trump, and he’ll likely keep his job if election results keep trending as they are in the House.
The Supreme Court has also been dramatically reshaped. Trump appointed three justices to the court—Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett—to give conservatives a 6-3 majority. This year, the Supreme Court granted Trump widespread immunity for so-called “official acts” during his presidency, a decision that organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union have criticized for putting him above the law. In essence, Trump will have the full backing of government power behind him to achieve his aims, a perfect storm of control.
What do those aims entail? One of the most consequential issues is an effort to deport millions of people who are in the country illegally using the National Guard and other forms of enforcement. Vance has estimated 1 million may be deported per year if the plan goes through. Here, Trump’s xenophobic message that immigrants are destroying the country will be put into action.
For the economy, Trump wants to cater to the rich by lowering the corporate income tax rate and reversing President Biden’s efforts to raise income tax on America’s wealthiest individuals. At the same time, he has proposed a 20% tariff on foreign goods that figures to increase costs for the average consumer; companies are already looking at raising prices in anticipation of these proposed tariffs.
There are many other things Trump wants to do in his second term, including eliminating the federal Department of Education, increasing America’s reliance on fossil fuel for energy and rolling back environmental protections, cracking down on LGBTQ+ rights and cutting off support to Ukraine.
The U.S will soon remember why it voted Trump out in 2020: the chaos of his administration and the terrible and inhumane policies; the vileness of the man who was already impeached twice in his previous term, who has lied and spewed hateful rhetoric, who has actively tried to undermine democracy and who is now our president again.
In the face of such a horrifying victory, it would be easy to give up and bow to all that the next four years throw at us. But that cannot be the way we proceed. America has survived this long because we have believed in the power of democracy and of hope. So, as many had faith in a win for Harris this election, we must keep that faith for the coming times. We must fight back wherever possible, in the courts and with our voices, against Trump’s efforts to wield unchecked power and impose his awful ideas on the country.