For four years, I drove past a yard sign that never came down, here in the red part of Maryland’s Eastern Shore depicting Trump, asking “Miss Me Yet?” and I’d scoff and think “Why would anyone miss him?” And now America has spoken and we have our answer; 50.9% of the country missed him, the first time a Republican has won the popular vote in 20 years. So many firsts. First time our nation has elected a convicted felon; first time a president is not permitted to travel to 38 nations around the world due to his legal status.
I was proud of my two Gen Z first-time voter kids for staying up until one a.m. with mom (I only made it until two when Philly fell); after all, Gen Z broke for Harris. Most disappointing were the numbers on white women. I’d definitely like a word with the manager about why Democrats were hanging around in barber shops worried about the votes of black men when 53 percent of white women voted for an adjudicated rapist. Choosing one compelling factor; having watched countless hours of news coverage “on both sides,” for me would be the uninformed voter: these people who talk about the economy which they don’t realize a) is doing fine at the moment thanks to Biden fixing it after the devastation of Trump’s pandemic era and b) Trump only inherited a good economy from Obama.
Fortunately, Kamala Harris is a woman who knows how to give a classy concession speech and pay respect to our nation’s constitution with a peaceful transfer of power she herself will have to extend so this nation will not endure four years of gaslighting, lies, and bullying. Democracy, ugly as it can sometimes be, will proceed, regardless of the consequences. It’s like watching someone in your family or a best friend go back to the toxic ex—you know it’s the worst decision ever, but there’s nothing you can do about it, so you just watch empathetically (with an internal wince) while it unfolds.
The only comforting thing is the odd surprising glimmer I saw in Rachel Maddow’s eyes on election night—I didn’t understand it at first, but now I do. Job security for her, I suppose, and makes me think of all those MAGA “Don’t blame me I voted for Trump” hats and bumper stickers. Sign me up for a “Don’t blame me, I voted for Harris” sticker.
I agree with Rex Huppke in USA Today in his call to “spare me the wails of ‘This isn’t who we are!’” I’ve got bad news for the sane and decent among us: This is exactly who we are.” His words here ring true:
When an unhinged and unqualified billionaire like Elon Musk is put in charge of slashing the federal government to bits, that will be what America chose.
When the Department of Education is abolished and our education system falls into the hands of right-wing ideologues and religious zealots, that’s the outcome of the choice U.S. voters made.
We’re a country that supports the mass deportation of immigrants, a promise Donald Trump made and will undoubtedly keep. When families are pulled apart, cities and towns are raided by federal law enforcement and the people who once worked in communities and made homes there—some for decades—are penned in detention camps, it is the voting public that approved such a thing. If legal citizens get swept up in the chaos, so be it. It was the voters’ choice.
When Trump’s tariffs hit and drive up prices across the board for consumers, it won’t be the fault of the myriad economists who told us what would happen. It will be the thing a majority of Americans chose. It will be the economic pot they chose to be boiled in, even though the Biden-Harris administration has the economy rocking.
When Trump does away with his own legal cases—trashing the rule of law his party once claimed to stand for—that will be what the people wanted. When he turns the U.S. Department of Justice on his so-called enemies, when he goes after Democrats and others with malicious intent and calls in the military to stifle any form of dissent, keep your mouth shut about that being un-American. It’s now 100% American, because it’s exactly what people in this country willfully chose.
Huppke’s piece is great but fails to mention one crucial thing. What about when Trump gets his hand-picked Supreme Court to pass a national abortion ban, and instead of women dying in only a handful of states, they start dying in all of them? In the 2024 election, new abortion laws passed in seven of the 10 states where they were on the ballot. Trump waffled on questions about reproductive rights during the campaign, and women who support him love to talk about “leaving it to the states,” but the truth is that Trump won’t care what the states are doing, will use federal tools instead, and is about to “staff the entire executive branch with people who believe that abortion is murder and seek to end it with whatever tools they have at their disposal.”
Maybe, while we brace ourselves for the twisted haunted-funhouse that will be the next four years, I’ll just get a Joe Biden eating an ice cream cone “Miss Me Yet?” sign for my yard.
