The Empire Strikes Back: putting the election into the context of modern life and where we go from here

The shock from the election still hasn’t subsided. Looking at my phone that night didn’t quite feel real. It was eerily similar to a movie scene where the villains you thought were done for come back to take the lead. I wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about the Democrats after they decided to court moderates and amplify Republican voices spurned by Trump like the Cheney’s, but I was still optimistic. I genuinely believed that the positive energy surrounding Kamala’s campaign and the very real threat of fascism would allow us to eke out a win. The Democratic platform wasn’t perfect but I thought this could be a turning point for this country. Despite the extreme polarization and entrenched problems, it looked like we were about to enter a new chapter where real change was possible. Well, I guess I was right about that part at least, but it won’t be the change we need or want. The conservative Deathstar came back with a vengeance, and we’re the ones who built it. A lot of mistakes were made, the Democratic leadership once again dropped the ball, but there’s more to this story. All of the technological, societal, and cultural issues that have shaped the modern world coalesced to deliver a devastating blow to democracy and the progressive movement. 

There is no excuse for supporting theocrats, oligarchs, and wannabe fascists but there are some very real societal problems that created the conditions for Trump to win. COVID accelerated the wealth inequality crisis that’s been building since the 80s. The post-COVID world - well actually the post-Great Recession world - has been filled with uncertainty and hardship for the vast majority of people in this country. They’re desperate, looking for someone to blame, and a way back to stability. Americans want an economic policy that helps working-class people get ahead, but they’re not getting it. Instead, they’ve seen their economic power stripped and wealth consolidated in the hands of a few people. Unfortunately for the Democrats, they were seen as the face of a rigged economic system. Incumbents like them have been losing elections around the world since 2020 because of this. It literally happened to Trump the last time he ran. It doesn’t matter how much GDP grows or if inflation slows when the majority of citizens are living paycheck to paycheck. If you can’t afford groceries you’re going to be angry and ready for something new. Republicans want you to think that their conservative genius delivered them this election, but this wasn’t about them. It was about Capitalism. Many of the states that voted for Trump also voted for progressive policies like minimum wage increases and reproductive freedom. This is backed up by a recent study, where when given the choice absent a candidate or political party, progressive policies consistently beat out any right-wing proposal. Once again the Democrats should have listened to Bernie, who has written some of the best commentary on this election. Americans are fed up with the status quo neoliberalism, and despite Democrats having policies aimed at that, we completely fumbled the messaging. Trump took advantage of that to convince everyone he’d solve their problems just like in 2016. 

What made it so easy for Trump to convince people of his shaky economic plans was social media. Our lives are ruled by algorithms, this election was no different. Moral outrage is the number one factor in making viral content, and that’s what Trump’s messaging is fine-tuned to. He wants you to be angry about everything happening to him and by proxy you. That sort of message is perfectly tailored to spread on social media, even if it’s not true. Every social media platform flooded voters' feeds with content that activated all of their frustrations with life and painted the left as the source of all of their troubles. Facts and unity just aren’t exciting enough to drive engagement, so the vast majority of Americans became trapped in this right-wing echo chamber. This world was completely hidden from people like me, which is one of the biggest issues when all of your information is sorted by algorithms. Even after reading Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein, which details the alternative reality the right is building on the internet, I still didn’t see any of this coming. My naive optimism was shaped by my own social media bubble. A bubble that probably overlaps with yours if you’re reading this. All we saw were coconut memes, endorsements from our favorite people, and packed stadiums. On the other side, there were rambling speeches, cringy social interactions, and a lack of self-awareness or empathy. Based on that picture, it was easy to think that we had all of the momentum. I knew about the problems with the campaign, like the veering away from progressive values and oddly strong support for Israel, but I wanted to feel good about something. I wanted to have hope, so that’s what social media gave me. There was no way to know what was about to happen unless I had made a fake account that the algorithm designated as rightwing. So while we were stuck in our daydream of a better future, the conservative message ripped through social media, creating a false reality for millions of Americans.

Rising inequality and social media were major reasons why Trump won, but we can’t leave it at that. Doing so would be offensive to a lot of people in my life. It would be a retread of the tired arguments that the Civil War was actually about states’ rights and economic freedom. Americans may be hurting economically but they decided that made it ok to actively vote against civil rights. Conservative personalities like Dave Portnoy have said that the left is alienating half the country by calling them Nazis for voting for Trump, but they did vote for someone who’s repeatedly been said to glamorize Hitler. Trump and his lackeys were very clear about what their agenda was for Women, Immigrants, Trans folks, and people of color. The Madison Square Garden rally was filled with racist jokes pointed at Latinos and Black Americans. JD Vance and the Heritage Foundation have called for a national abortion ban. Trump has also called for sicking the justice department on his enemies and protestors, all while joking about getting rid of elections. None of this was a dealbreaker for 75 million people. Not only was it not a deal breaker, it persuaded many to join the cause. A day after the election racist text messages were sent to Black Americans across the country. New merch has dropped with the slogan “You’re Body, My Choice”. It’s deja vu from 2016 when Trump’s campaign was a rallying cry for the worst among us. Racism, sexism, and xenophobia are still very much rooted in the American electorate, and Trump provides a release valve for all of it. 

I’m under no impression that we’ve righted any wrongs of the past, but I had faith in the notion that young people were learning from the past and becoming more progressive. As Gen Z came of age, it was our job to fight back against the hateful rhetoric on the right and move this country forward. I was wrong, and that’s one of the things I’m struggling with most. Despite researching online culture and even writing about the “manosphere” last year, I severely underestimated how many young people are becoming radicalized and being led to believe that life is a zero-sum game. Other generations dealt with this, just look at what Fox News did to our grandparents, but this feels different. Gen Z’s primary form of entertainment is through podcasts and YouTube. They’re not getting exposed to information through any sort of primary source or reputable platform. All they have are their parasocial relationships and the right is winning that war. Almost all of the most popular podcasts lean right, and kids are spending more time with these hosts than they do other people in their lives. Listening to podcasts feels like hanging out, so when Trump, Elon, or any of the other far-right grifters come on, they’re just new members of the parasocial friend group. When they see the world's richest man smoking weed and living the life they want to live, they listen to what he has to say. (It’s not lost on me that Elon acts exactly how a teenage boy would act if they had 300 billion dollars). Every media outlet had some sort of piece about whether the left needs a Joe Rogan. Whether we need one or not, is beside the point. Gen Z is showing exactly what happens when the worst of our sociocultural tendencies become weaponized by technology. (Taylor Lorenz had an excellent piece about this, Why Democrats won't build their own Joe Rogan. One of my favorite points was that influencers on the left aren’t funded because their goals are the antithesis of those in power.)

I still don’t know how to square any of this with the future I envision. This blog is all about navigating the human condition and finding our way through the chaos, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. We’ve turned back the clock 50 years on civil rights and progressive economics. None of the technological trends I’ve mentioned are going away any time soon either. It will be harder to see what reality is behind the smoke and mirrors of social media and right-wing propaganda. As delusional as it may seem, what does give me some comfort is that we’ve been here before. Maybe we haven’t with social media, but we have with social issues. Past presidents have been closer to tyrants than we’d like to admit. Women couldn’t vote until the 1920’s. The South had a legal racial caste system during the same time that our parents and grandparents were alive. In all of the conversations I’ve had this week, the best advice I got was to lift myself up and go serve. They won, this time, but half the country still believes in helping others and creating a better future. Now it’s time to focus on our communities and act. We have to build a real coalition on the left focused on improving lives and protecting those we care about. It’s going to be hard but we have to fight like hell for each other. More than that we have to get out of our bubbles and into the real world. That’s where the work will happen. It’s also where our lives are. Almost all of my pieces come back to this, but the small moments are what make life meaningful. Those moments aren’t online. They’re found with our friends and family. We’re going to see a lot of bad things over the next four years and some of us are going to be directly affected, but we have to live the best lives we can. They can try to stop us, but we owe to ourselves to not let them stop us from living. That may be easy for a white guy on the West Coast to say, but please don’t give up hope. We lost a lot this week, but we didn’t lose ourselves, at least not yet. The presidential historian Helen Cox Richardson said it best “Heroes are those who do the right thing even when the walls are closing in”. It’s time to be a hero if you can. Remember that resistance isn’t futile, it’s necessary.