America bleeds. As of the morning of Nov 6, 2024, Donald Trump has been elected as the 47th president of the United States. For the four years since his last presidency ended in attempted insurrection, those few words have hung over the heads of the American left as only a dreaded possibility. Today, they are a crushing reality.

While certainly some were skeptical of Kamala Harris’ campaign strategies, few could have ever predicted how disastrously she would lose. For the first time since George W. Bush in 2004, a Republican candidate won not just the electoral college, but also the popular vote. What’s worse, neither race was particularly close. Trump swept up victories in key battleground states Pennsylvania and Wisconsin before the night had even come to a close, and he leads Harris by millions in the nationwide count.

What does this mean for the future of our country? For the future of our families? For the future of ourselves?

At its most basic and hard to stomach level, it means that the GOP will have complete control over U.S. politics for four years, if not more. With the Senate, – which flipped over to the Republicans on Election Day – the Supreme Court and presidential office in their grasp, conservatives will have near unfettered control over the legislative process. 

This domination should not be taken lightly, because it certainly isn’t by Trump. His self-stated plan to be a day-1 dictator has become easier than ever, and the path to Project 2025’s total implementation has been cleared of all remaining roadblocks.

At its next level, Trump’s victory means uncertainty for the futures of many. 

Women, whose bodily autonomy will only continue to be ripped away, will face unprecedented tyranny over their freedoms. 

Immigrants, whose entry into the U.S. will become an even more impossible prospect, will be deported en masse. 

Transgender people, who have for years suffered as the face of the conservative movement’s campaigns of hate, will struggle to secure the means to exist in the way they wish. 

As much as I wish it were, this isn’t alarmism – it’s preparation for what’s to come. 

I look at my friends and family, so many of whom fall into this list of persecuted people, and see in their faces the type of fear that can only be understood by feeling it yourself. We shouldn’t have to live in a world where that feeling becomes the norm, where those fears are realized, but it seems now that we are hurtling towards that future at a blistering speed. 

The time for being cautious, for being diplomatic with people that want you dead, came to a screeching halt as soon as America decided it wanted Donald Trump as its president. Harris led a campaign focused on the reclamation of a bright future; America wanted a darker one.

With all of that said, it might seem unreasonable to ask for you to hold onto hope. But, from my view, it might be all we have left.

Hope doesn’t win elections, it doesn’t secure rights, it doesn’t save lives – right now, we don’t have the power for any of that. What hope does do, however, is keep us burning. It keeps us ambitious and passionate about our lives, it gives us the motivation to get up each morning and make the most of what we have. If we give up hope, we only concede more ground to those who seek to quell that fire. It is only when we have given up hope that we have truly lost.  

So don’t lose hope; keep your fire burning. We’ll suffer for four years, potentially longer. Many might not even make it that long. We’ll watch as democracy is toyed with and discarded as if it were merely a suggestion. By the time all is said and done, there will only be hope to cling on to, hope that America wakes up from its delirium and its people see sense.

We’ve lost the battle today; let’s fight for a chance at a better tomorrow.