Donald Trump, who was bogged down in the kind of baggage that would sink any other candidate, nonetheless sailed to victory to become the 47th president of the United States. As of this writing, he had won 277 electoral votes and four out of seven battleground states (North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin).
Trump, who before his election as president in 2016 had never served in government, oversaw an administration filled with chaos, was impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, refused to concede the 2020 election, which he lost, was impeached a second time for inciting the insurrection on Jan. 6, was charged with 86 felony counts across four criminal cases and convicted of 34 of them.
During his campaign, he ran to improve the economy, with few substantial policies beyond tariffs and tax cuts. He threatened prosecution for his political opponents, demonized immigrants and promised mass deportation of the undocumented, and used increasingly misogynistic and racist rhetoric on the campaign trail—even going as far as questioning Kamala Harris’s race and calling her lazy.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who has served in each branch of government, launched a full-fledged campaign in just over 100 days and forged a broad-based coalition of supporters that included everyone from Beyonce to Lebron James to rock-ribbed Republican Liz Cheney.
VP Harris offered specific proposals on how to uplift the middle class, including $25000 in downpayment assistance for first-time homebuyers, addressed the specific concerns of Black men and Latino men, including providing $20,000 in forgivable loans for Black and Latino entrepreneurs to start their businesses, and promised to serve as a champion for reproductive rights. Notably, she also vowed to be a president for all Americans, even those who didn’t vote for her, and to bring joy and optimism back to politics.
Yet Trump still won.
This is the bitter reality that seemed to prove the adage that a Black person has to be twice as good as a white person to go half as far. When it became clear that VP Harris was losing the presidential race, Black women took to social media to express their disappointment.
Some expressed fear about what it would mean for their reproductive rights.
Some expressed resignation that country that was built on racism continues to be racist.
Others expressed anger at the protest votes they believed swung the election Trump’s way.
And some placed Harris’s loss in a wider context of the country’s overall move to the right or a failure to grasp the gravity of one’s vote.
Black women will continue to post about this stunning loss over the next few days and weeks and will once again steel themselves for the onslaught to come. But rather than fight, rally or protest for everyone’s rights some Black women are urging each other to simply—take care of one another.