A Hard, Necessary Talk: Thoughts on the 2024 Election

It's a morning to grieve. It's a morning to process. It's a morning to recover. And it's a morning to heal.

I want to start this morning talking about addiction.

I don’t necessarily mean addiction to substances, but that’s certainly part of it. I mean addiction to a whole host of things. Drugs. Sex. Shopping. Wealth. Hoarding resources. We don’t understand these things in the United States of America because they are essential to the operation of the United States of America. Our system of capitalist consumption, as well as the entire fabric of our society and culture, are predicated on addiction and enabling facilitated by those systems and interlocking systems of personal relationships.

At the heart of addiction are wounds. Things that happened to us when we were children, things that happened to us as adults, things that simply happened to us and profoundly changed how we operate as human beings in ways we are often completely and utterly oblivious to. Our actions are filtered through unconscious motivators that keep us from actually dealing with those wounds because they are so painful that to address them head on feels like it might mean death or personal destruction. Instead, we employ a complex series of behaviors that distract us, that might soothe the pain of those wounds as we go about our lives. The problem is that these behaviors, these coping mechanisms, often hurt ourselves, hurt others, and, ultimately, hurt society at large. All the while, we are awash with magical thinking. Fantasies that put to rest cognitive dissonance and tell us that if we just get the next promotion, if we save enough money, if we are able to do this, achieve that, then, finally, thankfully, we will achieve a sense of calm and rest.

Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again Movement, as designed and carried out by the wealth class, are some of the most incredible and powerful enablers in the history of the United States. Trump built his career on selling these fantasies to willing dupes, promising that his wealth and fame and success were just a purchase or vote away from being transferred over to consumers and supporters. MAGA is a carefully designed illusion that America can return to some ill-defined past moment that never existed. And, in time a great fear and unrest, they found the perfect recipe for electoral success.

There are many reasons Trump easily won the 2024 Election. We will discuss these in a few moments and undoubtedly I will be explaining this for a long time to come. But before we dive into that, I want to start with some hard truths.

The Democratic Party and liberals have been living in their own self-fulfilling fantasies for a long time now. They don’t feel as acrid as MAGA’s. They sound better. Look better. They’re pleasing in a way that chooses to prioritize cathartic optimism over bitter hatred. But unfortunately, they are fantasies and magical thinking all the same.

Here are hard truths.

For anyone willing to see it, it has been obvious that America has been moving to the Right for years now. This has been accelerated by Trump and the GOP, but also the capitulation of the Democratic Party and corporate liberal media, all working in tandem to carry out the interests of capitalism.

Our institutions are not inherently good or worthy. They were created by Founders who intentionally designed a system to benefit themselves and white, wealthy men in order to stave off the “dangers” of democracy. They are working as they were intended.

American history is an easily understandable story of how white supremacy, patriarchal misogyny, nativism, and fearmongering have been used to benefit the wealthy.

The past half century has seen a power grab by the wealth class as they have seized back power from the New Deal Consensus, created a new system designed to redistribute wealth from the working and middle classes to themselves, and have ushered in an era of intentional inequality and precarity.

What the Democratic Party has relied on, with a few notable successes, is a political appeal that these things are either not true, not needing addressed, or fundamentally dangerous and unnecessary to discuss. Even as we have seen racism, sexism, nativism, and gay and transphobia become more pronounced and politically effective, we have been told this “isn’t who we are.” That America is “fundamentally good.” That if we can just get past Donald Trump everything would be fine.

These are fantasies. This is magical thinking. None of this has had any real relationship with the truth or reality of the situation. In this, the Democratic Party entered the 2024 Election presenting their magical thinking and their fantasies against the magical thinking and fantasies of Trump and the MAGA Movement. In the conditions we’re experiencing, it is much easier for millions of people to go with the latter. For them, it was at least a decision that meant admitting there was a problem. The solutions, obviously, are not real and are disastrous. But that was the decision nonetheless.

I watched the Harris Campaign with great dismay. The enthusiasm following Joe Biden’s decision to step aside was contagious, and there was a brief hope that maybe the party would actually turn the page. The aesthetics were great. The rallies well-orchestrated. For months we were treated to people tweeting clips of enthusiastic crowds and assuring us the election was in the bag.

This, I hope I don’t have to tell you, was magical thinking.

The reaction last night and this morning to that bubble popping has been disturbing. It’s bad enough that I’m seeing people saying they’re simply deciding to not pay attention to politics anymore. Others are abusively telling Black and Hispanic people that they’ll take pleasure in watching them killed or imprisoned in concentration camps. There’s a lot of blame being slung at gay and trans people. People who put their lives on the line standing up for brothers and sisters being massacred in Gaza.

In my time, I have been around a lot of addicts. I have seen what happens when their fantasies are threatened. Because insecurity is the heart of these behaviors, what you can expect is that any challenge to the well-crafted fantasy is sure to elicit violence. This is why insecure men react to a feeling of weakness or powerlessness with physical violence. This why you might have experienced a father or mother who lashed out at you and projected their faults onto you.

The Democratic Party and large swathes of the American public are coming down off the high of a manic period of magical thinking. There was simply no way Donald Trump could ever come to power again. His incompetence, his crimes, his repulsive nature, all of it, would surely be recognized and, after a bit of vote tallying, they could put the whole ugly thing behind them. And, what’s more, this is exactly what they were told by the Democratic Party, a slew of pundits, and plenty of online influencers who have built their platforms and fortunes off enabling their supporters just like Trump and the GOP and assuring them our institutions are solid, victory is a foregone conclusion, and to trust the plan.

Personally, I knew there was a good chance Trump would win. I learned my lesson from 2016 and my research has made things abundantly clear. When writing American Rule I came to understand the actual history of this country. The Midnight Kingdom taught me that the growing authoritarian movement was the logical evolution of our present politics and that neoliberal capitalism was pushing us in this direction. And, yet, at the same time, yesterday, as Democratic strategists and insiders reached out to me with a set of polls telling them Harris wasn’t just going to win but that she was poised for a landslide, I let myself hold that fantasy for a few moments.

Why?

Because it was pleasing. Because it was what I wanted to believe to be true.

Recovery is not a straight line. It has starts and stops. Moments of relapse and worsening. Other moments of great leaps forward and abundant hope. It’s messy business. There are going to be times where you feel like giving up. There will probably be a new Democratic politician emerge in the next year or two that will capture your imagination and, through a series of speeches, memes, videos, or slogans, will make you feel the tickle of accelerated hope. This happens and none of us are immune to it completely.

What I want to communicate to you is this: it is time we grow up.

Politicians are not saviors or messiahs. They deserve your criticism and suspicion. No party is perfect. They are driven by economic incentives that should worry you. No election is in the bag because circumstances have shifted so dramatically that we are now, like it or not, engaged in all-out class struggle between the wealth class and everyone else. The time to stop this completely has passed. This is the reality of our lives now. Like a diagnosis of a serious disease, we can either wrap our heads around the truth of the matter and take the necessary steps, or we can simply acquiesce, retreat to convenient fantasies, and allow it to eat away at us.

I have thoughts on what needs to happen now. I’ve alluded to them in previous dispatches and in my books and in podcasts. The numbers coming out of this election make it very obvious what has happened and where the Democratic Party has failed. That’s the good news. There is a very, very clear path laid out. It’s now a matter of whether or not we can summon the courage to recognize it and ultimately walk that walk.

You may think you have the privilege to give up, but this thing will never stop pursuing you. Even if you were to decide to join the fascistic movement, it will eventually devour you. In the meantime, millions of vulnerable Americans are in the crosshairs and they deserve your help. And, by helping them, you will ultimately help yourself and the people you love.

I want this to be a moment of clarity and self-reflection. The behaviors I’ve been outlining are not fun to look at or wrestle with. It’s exhausting. Shameful. And it demands grieving and an intention to heal. It is much more convenient and, often, more enjoyable to simply fall into the abyss and let the cards fall where they may. But as we now transition into preparing for the second Trump Administration, which is ready to serve tech fascists and antidemocratic billionaires alike, and, not to mention, ally itself with an international authoritarian movement that includes China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, the next few months is going to require some serious soul-searching.

Today, I would recommend resting. Connecting with people you love. This is not a pain that is going to heal quickly. But that healing requires a sober and honest look and movement beyond these convenient, pleasing fantasies. We will fight. And I believe we will win. But that fight and that victory do not come easily.