Donald J. Trump, the former president who spent the final days of his last term in office inciting an insurrection and getting impeached, has been elected to a second term. As of this writing, the Associated Press reports that he’s leading the popular vote and on track to win it, which is a first.
Obviously, this is not good news to a lot of people. Trump spent much of the campaign railing against immigrants and promising mass deportation on his first day in office. (How he actually plans to do that is unclear.) It’s also really bad news for reproductive rights. Roe V. Wade was overturned in 2022, and it seems likely to stay that way, if it doesn’t spiral into attempts at a national abortion ban. That’s to say nothing for the environment, or public schools, or people who want Elon Musk as far away from American governance as possible.
The opposing candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, failed to win enough votes in the crucial swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to eke out a win. The Democratic campaign, like pretty much everything else this season, was unusual. There were effectively no primaries due to President Joe Biden’s incumbency and intent to seek a second term. However, after a disastrous performance at a debate against Trump on June 27, a crusade to get Biden to withdraw from the race began. He did so on July 21, endorsing Harris. Trump was also shot in the ear while speaking at a rally during this period, which was a really big deal for almost half a week.
J.D. Vance, Ohio senator and the subject of a lesser Ron Howard film, will serve as Trump’s Vice President. Trump sent an angry mob after Mike Pence, his last vice president. Congratulations to Vance.
There will be plenty of analysis over what went wrong with the Harris campaign in the coming days and weeks. Right now, you’re probably some mixture of scared, angry, sad, tired, defeated. We’ve seen this play before; we’ve seen Donald Trump’s face or heard about his doings pretty much every day for the better part of a decade at this point, and it now looks like we will until at least early 2029. It, in the opinion of this writer, fucking blows. But there are still a lot of people doing their best to make the world a better place. Our colleagues at Splinter and Jezebel are doing some vital political reporting, especially about abortion. Activism to support the climate or the people of Palestine isn’t going to stop under Trump—it will probably get harder, but it’s not going to stop. If you’re reading this, you’re awake and alive today. Make the most of it.
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