Whew! November is finally coming to an end. It has been something like a whirlwind perusing through the United States. I am not the same person I was in October, in good ways and bad. It has changed everything. It has changed how I view the world. But I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself. First, let’s talk about the elections.
I moved to the United States when I was 13 years old. Two decades later, I finally decided to dive right into politics. I will definitely credit this fascination to none other than Donald Trump. I wasn’t a fan of him when he first ran in 2016, and my beliefs have strengthened if anything.
To me, Donald Trump stands for hatred. Even before this election cycle, I couldn’t stop talking about the concentration camps that the administration placed undocumented immigrants in. The way that he has fundamentally changed America for the worse never left me.
This election cycle felt different though.
Kamala Harris was running with Tim Walz. I will be honest and say that I wasn’t sure about this ticket at first. I never really took the time to get to know Kamala and her accomplishments. I liked Biden. However, I have to admit that age is a big factor when voting for someone to lead the entire United States.
I’m only in my 30s, and my back hurts constantly; I can’t imagine having to deal with the whole country’s issues on a daily basis.
Though I wasn’t thrilled that Biden was dropping out of the race, I knew I wanted Kamala to win. I did my due diligence. I read up on what she has accomplished not only since she was elected vice president but even before that. I concluded that I wasn’t better than anyone who judged her.
I wasn’t any better than the guys in the military who just assumed that women weren’t fit to be in certain jobs. I just wasn’t.
This election cycle opened my eyes to feminism in the United States. I realized that I was choosing to ignore how men treated women, especially in fields where they weren’t welcomed initially. I was in the Navy for 11 years. I wasn’t a girl’s girl at all. In fact, I moulded my personality to fit a palatable version of who I was.
The topic of feminism is a whole rabbit hole, and I went down, but to get back to the main point, Kamala Harris was more than qualified to be the president of the United States. She was the most qualified candidate that we have had even in the past two decades.
As someone who has been in positions where I had to do more than other people to even be considered as an equal, I failed miserably.
It doesn’t hurt that Tim Walz was just a great guy overall.
Fast forward to election day. I was actually excited to be a part of an election. I wanted to vote despite knowing California typically leans a certain way (part of why I haven’t voted in the past few elections).
Then, the election results started to come in. And I had a bad feeling in my gut. The red wave was overtaking, but the blue wall didn’t want to appear.
And here I was, unable to sleep with such a sense of defeat.
When the results finally came out, I was devastated. I cried for days. Days. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. Nothing felt real. It felt like the curtain was pulled underneath me and the whole country.
I think this election cycle made me realize that despite how I view the country, despite the optimism that I had that Americans would make the right choice, I was so clearly wrong. Maybe I just stayed too long on the hope-core side of Tiktok. Maybe I watched too many men and women show out and tell the world they would vote for Kamala, and I convinced myself she stood a chance.
Maybe I thought that it was 2024. I believed (wrongly) that people weren’t sexist anymore. I convinced myself that people weren’t racist anymore. People will see her qualifications and experience and make the right decision. This decision would influence the United States citizens and the rest of the world.
I couldn’t for the life of me comprehend that people would pick Donald Trump. He was objectively a terrible person -a misogynist, a racist, a rapist, a classist (and the list goes on). The economy was getting significantly better under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. People were paying something around $2 for gas. I couldn’t comprehend it.
In a way, everything still feels unreal. I continue to believe the psychics and mediums over at TikTok saying that this isn’t over yet. My tin foil hat is on and has been on since the election. I have engulfed myself in individuals discussing election interference, like Stephen Spoonamore. Interference is the only reasonable explanation to me. I can’t accept it until it is finalized, and even then, I might just keep up the fight with the rest of them.
I will say that this election at least motivated me to read more. In November, I engulfed myself in several books, mostly non-fiction bangers, that I hoped would help explain this crazy election cycle.
non-fiction November
1,. Jesus and John Wayne. If there is a book I could recommend to help anyone currently lost during this election cycle, it would be Jesus and John Wayne.
I understood that Christians were voting for Donald Trump because they didn’t believe in abortion. However, what was at play was much more than just good old Christians doing what they thought was right. It was, in fact, Christian Nationalists. Christian nationalists believe that the government should be greatly influenced by religion, particularly their version of the truth.
2. Dear Madam President. The author recalls how the election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump went down. The book touches on the misogyny within the United States and how it played a part in the election results.
3. On Tyranny. This book should actually be required reading for everyone. It helps the reader identify what clues to look for when politicians run under a certain agenda. It is a practical guide to overcoming fascism and other authoritarian regimes.
The rest of my reads are marked completed on Goodreads (arguably the best part). I am also reading Lucky Loser, The Truths We Hold, and Men Who Hate Women.
This blog did not go as planned. I guess I really wanted to talk about the election some more. But I hope that if you are feeling hopeless at the moment, you take some time to breathe if necessary. If you ever need to talk, please reach out.
I guess in another way, we’re not going back.
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