I woke up today at 6am, and the first thing I checked was the US election results. Fully expecting some races to still be too close to call, I was jolted awake with the most startling realization.

Call me hopeful or even naive, but I did not expect this. After witnessing one of the most truly wild campaigns, I was certain that things had finally become scary enough, and that voters had seen and heard enough to vote to protect the rights of people around them. I was swayed by the momentum, and was so sure that voters had finally see Trump for who is really is; not just a failed business mogul, nor a twice-impeached, racist, misogynist, xeno-, homo-, and transphobic insurrectionist or rapist with 34 convicted felony charges, but also a fascist.

And yet, at 6am, I woke up to the news that Donald Trump had been re-elected to serve as the 47th President of the United States.

Chidi, a character from "The Good Place" is standing and smiling, saying, "this broke me," after learning about Jeremy Bearimy's (whilst time on Earth moves as if it was a straight line, time in the afterlife moves in a very curvy and non-linear fashion which, when drawn on a whiteboard, resembles the cursive English word 'Jeremy Bearimy') dot over the "i" is an isolated point on the timeline which contains Tuesdays, July, as well as the point where "nothing never occurs."

Despite knowing better and to the detriment of my mental health, I spent most of my day doomscrolling my Mastodon and Bluesky feeds (openvibe is a great little app that combines all your decentralized feeds into one without all the gross algorithmically driven For You AI slop). So many posts I came across were either attempts to try and come to grips what had just happened or to lay blame where they could. I understand that temptation, as I've been on a rollercoaster of emotions doing the same.

Blame the tech oligarchs, who in this second gilded age of ours, predictably chose partisan profits over the future of the country. Blame them for taking over a once vital (and deeply flawed) communications platform and making a haven for white supremacy and literal Nazism to flourish. Blame them for kissing the ring, even after Trump said he'd throw them all in prison. Blame them for trading human rights in exchange for stonks going brr.

Blame the moderates who found common ground with far right extremists and helped to shift the Overton Window further and further to the right.

Blame the media's complete ineptitude and inability to not learn from the last two Trump election cycles, but to normalize Trump and what he stands for by both-sides-ing every thing, creating a deep asymmetry where Republicans are not required to answer for the things their leader says and does, whereas Democrats have to answer for everything. And that's the myth of the right - that radicals have taken over the Democratic party and that centrist and right-leaning men are under attack. But, if people genuinely believed that political parties should be held responsible for what the worst behavior from their leader, members, and supporters, then no one would vote Republican (at least not Trump's GQP).

Remember what Woody Guthrie wrote on his guitar: "this machine kills fascists," not, ‘"this machine thinks fascists make some interesting points worth considering."

I mean, where was this kind of reporting before the election took place?

Blame the Republicans for their successful efforts to gerrymander districts and actively disenfranchise voters. Blame them for Citizens United. Blame them for letting the worst of their party to take it over completely. Blame them for choosing to lick Trump's boot time and time again.

Blame the Democratic party for their hubris. Blame them for not being able to clearly articulate the unique threat Trump posed. Blame the for allowing unpopular candidates (i.e. "safe") to essentially be anointed as nominee instead of going with the the real choice voters wanted (i.e. "risky") all to maintain the status quo. Blame them for learning only one lesson from 2016 - move further to the right, despite knowing it does not work. In the absence of meaningful progress, fascism becomes an appealing alternative. Blame them for being incapable of rising to the occasion. Blame them for not meeting voters where they're at.

Blame the voters who with open eyes, hearts, and minds chose a party of hatred, violence, and vengeance over the status quo purely because he represents change; the kind of change matters less than the act of change itself. You can argue that voters didn't know who Trump was in 2016, but you can absolutely blame them now for knowingly choosing a dictator-in-making - one that will kowtow to the interests, wants, and whims of the dictators and fascists he admires and aspires to be like - the likes of Putin, Orban, Jong-Il, Xi, and Modi. Blame the voters, because there is no way to out message "Oh, he's not talking about *me*."

"There's a sign at Ramsett Park that says, 'Do not drink the sprinkler water,' so I made sun tea with it and now I have an infection."
Blame the voters

You can find blame everywhere you look, and it's all valid. But the question isn't why Harris lost - the real question to ask is why did he win? You could come up with any number of asinine, "well if only she had done xyz, she'd have won!" and you'd miss the point every single time. Trump is not an anomaly; he's a symptom of a disease. So why, despite knowing exactly what this disease will inevitably lead to, was he re-elected in such a decisive manner?

What I will say is that the far-right's tactic of "flooding the zone with shit" absolutely works. Remember when, during the one and only Presidential debate, he exclaimed with pure credulity, "they're eating the dogs!" That was September, not even two full months ago. The amount of effort required to fact-check a tsunami of mis- and disinformation is magnitudes of order more taxing than the energy needed to make shit up. And that's the point - flood the zone with so much shit that it becomes exhausting to keep up. At a certain point, fact checking and policy comparisons no longer matter because accuracy, sound thinking, and living in a shared and commonly understood reality are secondary to their god-kings.

So what's the answer? What's next?

I honestly don't know. This is a moment of reckoning for the progressive liberalist movement, not just in America, but world-over. With Canada's next federal election happening sometime between now and October 20th, 2025, it's important to remember that we Canadians are not immune from Trumpism.

Even when things aren't this hard and scary, the foundations of democracy at best are fragile. Today, it feels even more precarious than ever.

Not to end this on a total bummer of a note, I wanted to share two final notes with you.

The first is going to be heavily paraphrased from Amanda Nguyễn:

Democracy is beyond the ballot box. As always, true change is about relying on each other. Today you might be feeling scared. I understand that feeling...But what I've learned is that we all have the power to create change. It's in us, not in the politicians... Instead of resting our hope on others, we know we have our own agency to directly create change in our communities. Our commitment to justice is daily. The solution to anxiety is not forced relaxation, but rather, taking action. So when you're ready, we'll be here to organize... Thank you for nurturing hope.

And the second is A Brief History of the Most Famous Swear Word in the World:

Take care of yourselves, and continue to nurture that hope.