2024 saw one of the strangest and most confusing elections in the history of American democracy. So much of this election has been a mystery and much more has caused an already divided nation to feel even more divided. So, let’s recap and actually discuss what this all could mean for the future of the United States.
There are a lot of words that can be used to describe the 2024 election. Surprising, terrifying, frustrating is just a few. Personally, there is one I think matches it perfectly, uncertain. I don’t know about most people, but I was sure Kamala Harris was going to win. Here she was spreading a message of unity. Trying to rally people to a cause of a better tomorrow. She mentioned she wasn’t going to be like Joe Biden, who I think did a pretty good job. On the other side, representing the Republican party was Donald Trump. A man who had a disastrous run as president from 2016 to 2020. A man who had been caught in lie after lie. A man who denied that he lost reelection and claimed the election was “stolen”. A man who was found liable for sexual assault and convicted of fraud by the courts. The list goes on and on.
And then, the most unbelievable thing happened. Trump actually won. Many, including myself, were stunned. Then the fear set in. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump spoke very little on actual issues. He spent a majority of his time whipping his voting base into a frenzy by dehumanizing groups like immigrants and transgender people. When speaking on immigrants and the border, he routinely told the lie that people were flooding into America because Joe Biden had an open border policy. He told stories about how terrorists and rapists were entering our country by the scores.
Trump revealed his solutions to this problem on the campaign trail. That solution was to simply “get rid of them”. He talked about enacting mass deportations. He talked about sending entire families away because they were immigrants. He painted a picture that anyone who was an immigrant was some how illegal. And his fan base ate it up. But he didn’t stop with just immigrants.
He also, more than once, mentioned deporting “communists, Marxists, and socialists”. He insinuated he would deport Muslims and other non-Christian religion members except those who were of the Jewish faith. He talked about deporting anyone who supported Palestinian rights declaring that those people “hate America”. He demonized transgender people and helped reduce them to an ideology further dehumanizing them. He made multiple videos and comments about making gender affirming care illegal for all ages and called transgender people “radical leftists”.
He also revealed his economic plan to Americans. Tariffs. He described charging all foreign nations a tariff on goods coming into the United States. He even went so far as to single out China claiming he would impose a 60% tariff on all goods coming from China. In this disaster of a plan, he led his followers to believe nations around the world would simply eat that cost to keep doing business with America.
He spoke of so many crazy ideas like dismantling the Department of Education and the Department of Justice. He spoke of instructing Congress to pass a bill that the United States would only recognize 2 genders, male and female. He spoke of removing environmental protections put in place to combat climate change because he thought it was a hoax.
It wasn’t just policy that he spoke on. He told viewers of Fox News, a right leaning “news” network, that they didn’t need to vote because he “had so many votes already.” He even told an audience at a speaking engagement/rally that if they voted for him, “you will never have to vote again. We will fix it.” His rallies had the usual MAGA supporters like Marjorie Taylor Greene and celebrities like Hulk Hogan and billionaire Elon Musk telling audience members how great Trump will be.
When Donald Trump was announced as the winner of the presidential election, there was a ton of dread. This was further reinforced by the Republican party retaining control of the House of Representatives and gaining the majority in the Senate. Those who voted for him said they did so because he will end inflation, something that was caused by his awful economic policies in his first term. Democrats and left leaning voters began to look for reasons why they had lost what looked like a sure-fire victory. Some blamed groups like the transgender community, further alienating an already disenchanted community.
Trump gave a victory speech about his miraculous comeback and then in the most curious of circumstances, he went quiet. A man who would talk over others and ramble incoherently just went silent. This made the fear grow and raised uncertainty. A man who said so many things that would be considered borderline insane said nothing at all. No mention of his plan or agenda. That leaves us with uncertainty. The truth is we don’t know what will happen next.
Many of us didn’t even believe he would win and yet he did. He made so many comments that some see as “promises” and others see as “threats”. And yet, we don’t know if he will actually follow through. Many people are trying to be hopeful that maybe there will be a shift in the midterms that will balance us all out. However, are we even sure we will have midterm elections? As Trump and Maga always do, they spoke of doing away with things with no clear plan to replace them. What happens if he does what he said and removes all the government agencies he has mentioned? We don’t know.
Will he actually do away with the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Social Security costing millions of Americans to lose desperately needed services and resources? Will he actually ban gender affirming care for all transgender people and force them to de-transition? Will he actually remove the 14th and 22nd amendments to the Constitution? The answer is, we don’t know.
We have no idea exactly what he will do. We don’t know if he will follow Project 2025 to the letter or if he will simply toss it aside. Some people will use the argument that certain things can’t be undone because they are “the law”. At any other time in history, I would agree with that however, Roe v Wade was considered the law until one day, it wasn’t.
There is so much uncertainty with this election and what comes next. And I haven’t even got to the parts about ballot boxes being burned, votes seemingly not being counted, votes being changed, and voting machines being connected to a privately owned satellite network. Add in the fact that Trump’s popular vote lead has actually shifted away from him some and this election has been one that I don’t think history will forget. I also don’t think it will ever be known the true validity of it either. I’m not going to claim this one was stolen but oddly, the math isn’t mathing, as the kids say.
The question becomes if we don’t know what to expect, what do we do? There isn’t an easy answer. Unfortunately, we have to wait and see what actually happens. Based on Trump’s recent cabinet picks, I think we are in for a wild ride. My suggestion is to make sure you have back up plans, be mindful of the battles you pick, and be ready for anything no matter how insanely bat shit crazy it seems. We will all get through this one way or another. What the world looks like when we do, well, we just don’t know.
-Robin Alura
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