I concede that I wasn’t always a news junkie, but in my time in college and recently after, I have been incredibly involved in what’s happening in our world. And even more so now during this election cycle. I tirelessly watched both sides — admittedly rolling my eyes through every Trump rally. But I felt cautiously hopeful, saying to myself, “He won’t make it into office again, not with Kamala in the race.”
I watched the election-night coverage with a knot in my stomach. The red mirage hit hard and early on the map, and my anxiety became more potent as I watched the U.S. turn more red. I had a small hope that the blue wave would come to take over. To my disappointment, there were only mere puddles where a tsunami should have been.
I am by no means an optimist — however, a part of me held out hope that I would watch as her numbers slowly overpowered Trump’s. To my dismay, that moment never came, and all reports moved to say: Trump Wins.
My anxiety about the future of this country hasn’t eased up yet. But I’m not a sore loser, and neither is Kamala Harris. While I’m saddened by our country’s choice of the president elect, I’m a realist at heart.
In Harris’s concession speech, she said, “While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign … The fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people.” And to be realistic, while an impending doom has settled around me, I know that now more than ever is the time to be vigilant in values and morals.
I sat by listening to Trump’s promises to close the Department of Education, to have “one really violent day” in our nation reminiscent of The Purge movies, and to grant police federal immunity regardless of their actions so they can “do their job.” And though I’ve read through most of the concerning rhetoric from Project 2025, a scarier part of this election outcome is the movement from MAGA’s young male demographic. Before the election was even called, one young Republican, Nicholas J. Fuentes, took to Twitter to say, “Your body, my choice. Forever.”
Fuentes took this a step further in a video, inciting that “men win again, and yes, we control your bodies.” The tweet has a concerning 41,000 likes, and though many replies battle against him, he does not stand alone. When user @antijudaic19162 replied to him “don’t worry about it, no woman will ever let you impregnate her” another user, @TucktheGroyper, told her “as if we need permission.”
With the growing threats of violence and sexual abuse looming large over me and my generation, many women are taking to a new movement known as The 4B Movement. Originally started in South Korea — where there is ever increasing pressure for women to have children and get married — the four Bs boil down to this: no marrying men, no dating men, no sex with men, and no giving birth. According to NBC News, searches surrounding The 4B Movement are over 500,000 after the election results came out.
I am unprecedentedly privileged in that I am a white woman in America, and that this should be at the forefront of my worries. But I also worry about my rights as a queer person, and my ability to fight any discrimination fairly once Project 2025 institutes “the executive branch to use its independent resources and authorities to restrain the excesses of both the legislative and judicial branches.”
And I worry most for my friends who are people of color, who are facing their fears about their families being taken out of this country if Trump ends birthright citizenship like he’s promised to do. It’s hard to not feel like this is the beginning of the end.
But one thing I am very certain about is that the fight is not over. Donald Trump could actually reveal his “little secret” that helped him “do really well with the House” — a tidbit mentioned at his rally at Madison Square Garden — and end up in hot water. There is also the possibility that he ends up facing time for his 34 felon convictions, though it seems unlikely.
To use up the shreds of optimism that I still hold onto, I’ll hope that we don’t sit idly by with folded hands waiting for the storm to pass. I can concede many things, but I won’t concede my will to see myself and the people I care about protected. And like Harris, I will continue to fight.