By Elinor Tatum, reprinted from Word in Black
Eight years ago, I wrote an editorial after the 2016 election put Donald Trump in the White House for the first time. At the time my daughter Willa had just turned six years old. In 2016 I was at Clinton Headquarters but this year, I asked my daughter, now 14 and a freshman in high school, if she wanted me to be home to watch the returns with her. With no hesitation, she said “Yes Mommy, come home now. I just was phone banking to PA and now I am discussing the election with my friends.”
As I made my way home I thought to myself, “it has finally clicked for her, this election means something.” It seemed like she had paid little attention over the last few months and had not been very engaged in the election, but it was different last night.
First, we watched from the living room as the polls began to close and the numbers began to trickle in. State after state started being called for Trump, the numbers were mounting. At about 9:30 we moved to her room and we continued to watch until about midnight where she simply said once again, eight years later, “I have to turn this off. MOMMY, I’m scared.”
Nov 10. 2016
When I returned home at 2:30 in the morning from Jacob Javits Center waiting for the election results to come in, I was greeted by a sign written in 6-year-old handwriting that simply read “Hillary” with hearts, taped to my front door. I crept upstairs so as not to awaken that same sleeping girl, for whom I hoped that the news would be different by the time she woke up. That her sleep would somehow bring a different outcome from a long day of hopes dashed and dreams deferred. But alas, it was not meant to be. She awoke at the sound of my footsteps and immediately asked with so much hope in her eyes, “Who won?” As I told her Donald Trump was going to be our next president, she began to sob uncontrollably and said “Mommy, I am scared.”
She is not alone. Children across this country are scared. They are afraid for their futures and for the futures of their parents. One little girl at my daughter’s school asked her father this morning if this means that they will have to leave America. Another asked if we will be OK. Parents hugged and cried, “What is this world coming to? How did we get here? How did hate win?”
It is simple. Donald Trump reached out to a group of people who have never been really reached out to before. They are for the most part the undereducated, blue-collar, middle-class Americans who have been on the fringes of politics. They may not have voted or even been registered before, and that is one reason they were basically ignored in the polls. (Polls look at likely voters, and likely voters are those who have voted before). They are white and they are angry. And Donald Trump got their attention. With a larger than life personality — part PT Barnum and part Don King (one of his supporters) — he created a new base. And that was enough to take him over the top.
So what does that mean for the rest of America? What is clear is that we are divided, and that division is wider than ever. I think Hillary Clinton has said it best in her concession speech:
“Our campaign was never about one person, or even one election. It was about the country we love and building an America that is hopeful, inclusive and big-hearted. We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought. But I still believe in America, and I always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power.
“We don’t just respect that. We cherish it. It also enshrines the rule of law; the principle we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them.”
Clinton’s speech was heartfelt and painful but courageous. I just can’t help but to think about what if the tables had been turned. Would Trump have been able to concede? Would he have been able to say any words of healing? Unfortunately, I think not.
But Hillary has asked us to have an open mind and to “give him a chance to lead.” We owe that to our forefathers and to our constitution. But we also owe our forefathers an adherence to that constitution and a fierce loyalty to what this country means, and the freedoms we have fought for. Yes, we will have Donald Trump as president. Yes, we will have a Republican house and senate, and a Supreme Court short of justice and too often without justice, but still we do have our faith and our hope in what America is and what she can be. We owe it to all those who came before us and we owe it to our children to continue to press on. We must continue to fight for our civil rights and human rights. We must continue to embrace the fact that we are in the greatest country in the world, and we need to remain steadfast and be the watchdog of its future. This election is not the end. It is just a bump (Trump) in the road. And we will continue on the path that we have set. We must move forward. And we must remind our children, our girls especially, that, as Hillary Clinton said today, “Never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.”
Our time will come.
Postlogue
That was eight years ago, and Hillary Clinton was Trump’s opponent. We had not yet endured four years of his blatant disregard for truth, or law. His disrespect for this country and his fellow elected officials. Jan. 6, 2021, had not yet happened and he had not yet been convicted of a felony. And now, after a brutal, misogynistic, racist campaign against a Black woman, Kamala Harris, he has won again. And with this win, he also takes the Senate. We don’t know what the next four years will hold, but our future hangs again in the precipice. The future of our great country. This convicted felon who will occupy the White House has every intention of turning back the hand of time on every provision that truly safeguards the true meaning of what America is. From immigration, health care, and abortion rights to environmental protections and voting rights, we will see a different America.
On the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in New York’s harbor is a poem by Emma Lazarus penned in 1883. The last five lines of the poem, “The New Colossus” say it all. That was America’s promise: Immigration, both forced and free-willed, built America. Nonetheless there was a promise.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’”
This post appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.
