In grief and in hope
America decided to vote for fascism. That is something to grieve. But our grief isn’t the end of the story.
But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For we who are living are always being handed over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our mortal flesh.—2 Corinthians 7:1-11
I decided to stop watching election coverage and favored giving my body rest last night. And it turns out that I needed a good night’s sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night, looked at the election tracker, and fell into disbelief because what I feared might happen, what I even emotionally prepared for, did indeed happen. Donald Trump won the presidency, and he did so with wide support from Americans across every demographic. It wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t close. It was decisive and that is frightening for all of us, especially the most vulnerable among us.
It is devastating to see our neighbors, friends, and families choose to advance fascism. It is hard to know who to trust and how to engage. It’s deeply challenging to love our neighbors who, especially if we are minorities, voted for a platform and a candidate that hate us. It feels impossible to hold and the grief can be so overwhelming. I feel that today.
Life is already full of its own challenges, and this heinous victory just adds insult to injury for so many of us. Trump will certainly advance and embolden every injustice we face and the task before us, daunting in its own right, feels even heavier. For women, queer people, migrants, and so many others, I am so sorry for our collective failure and for letting you down. We will work to make this right.
It’s easy, in the face of this grief, to turn on each other. It’s easy to point fingers and assign blame. I feel it within me. I’m ready to offer a post-mortem and explanation for why this happened in the hopes of preventing it from happening again, or worse, just to prove that I was right. I don’t think that impulse is helpful now. Moreover, I don’t think we have any specific answers. It might be tempting for us to point the finger at Harris’s rightward shift or at the left for pressuring her to take a firmer stance on genocide—but it’s not the time for such conjecture. We may want to blame one another for this devastation, but we must limit our recrimination. Instead, let’s see all the grief that so many of us hold and take care of each other. In the face of authoritarianism and fascism, our unity is essential.
It is disturbing that over half of voters in this country decided that Trump, who gave us every reason not to support him, did indeed do that. For Christians, it is also discouraging that many of those voters profess faith in the God that we do. The church is truly possessed by the demon of MAGA, but exorcism is exactly what our Lord specializes in. The United States spoke loud and clear about who and what it is. It is a sad day to address that reality—we are the same today, as we were yesterday. This is a reflection of who the country is. If you are scared, unable to talk to family and friends that supported the fascist ticket, you aren’t alone.
But let us not allow our fear to overtake us. It is essential that we hold onto our grief and let ourselves feel all the feelings we need to feel, whether we are angry, sad, or just so overcome that we are just numb. But grief isn’t the end of the story. We were made for more than that. Every oppression we face, so did the God of the Oppressed. And in the person of Jesus Christ, we have hope. Not transcendent and distant hope, but rather imminent hope. This hope gives us the courage to act now. The fascists may have won an election, but the struggle is far from over. We can stand united against it, in our grief and in our hope.
I said before that Harris was not our savior. The injustices that we face in the country span across administrations and are embedded into the fabric of our country. Certainly, she would have been better than Trump. But our work for peace and justice continues today just as it did yesterday. I hope this a wake up call to the complacent that there are wicked powers around us who want to crush and oppress us.
Trump is a symptom of a bigger problem. And bullies like Trump are not new and the people can and will overcome them. God is with us, as we unite against evil. The scriptures are full of examples of hope against horror like this. I hope we can hold on to those memories and make new ones as we resist evil in all its forms. Our Lord goes before us in suffering and in victory. Let us hold on to him in this moment of grief.