The politics of personality, the catalyst for communities coalescing

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Well, the world did indeed end, as we know it, and I think a lot of us don’t feel fine. I’ve been kicking around the thoughts below since early Wednesday morning when I jolted awake to see the news. I’m waiting on the exit polls to do some reporting on them but for now, here are my thoughts.

The bad news first: we have to keep going.

The good news: we do that together and while there is justified dread now for women especially, it is an act of resistance to hold on to some faith. There’s no greater motivator than spite, so spitefully hold on to your hope.

Truth be told, I am not shocked Donald Trump has become President-Elect once again. I had seen enough covering his first term and worked on enough local media in the interim to see that as a real possibility. However, how quickly we saw the results was a shock and the resulting conversations about it have left me feeling like I want to crawl into a winter hibernation that lasts at least 2.5 years until the next slate of White House candidates emerges.

I wrote about five drafts of this post, the first three full of blame and more than a little frustration and anger. I blame everyone in nearly equal measure from misogynists, racists, Trump voters, the GOP, the Democratic party, and progressives - which means the blame game actually has no winner.

I had a whole screed aimed at Trump voters and the Democrat party alike, the righteousness of nuanced anger and biting sarcasm shone through it. But I sat on it for days because ultimately it doesn’t do any good to add to that narrative at a time when moving forward is more important.

For now, I can tell you that I didn’t talk to my mother on Wednesday (sorry ma, I’ll call today). I couldn’t do it because I kept thinking of Harris’ Tamil mother, Shyamala. I thought of what she must have experienced being ostracized by whatever small Indian community existed in the U.S. at the time after she had children with a Black Jamaican immigrant, what it took for her to keep the culture at least somewhat present in their lives with visits back to Chennai. Until recently, being Indian in America didn’t involve grocery delivery, Whatsapp, ready access to an enclave, or relatively widespread knowledge about our culture, holidays, and food. That moment in time, when our parents had to spend decades forging new paths, is gone and it made even having exit polling data on our community a thing that exists.

I thought of auntie and I thought of my own mom and I couldn’t talk to her because while I don’t feel Harris was representative of me in that way, I still feel like there is some connection to that part of her story and it was just too terrible to admit we immigrated to a country that discounts women’s right to their own bodies in this way, that a political party would essentially sacrifice a Black woman of Tamil descent at the altar of supporting a foreign power to the tune of billions and crassness from a convicted sexual harasser.

But at the end of the day Trump’s numbers stayed roughly the same from 2020 to this year, his voters think he is genuine and has convictions (of the non-criminal kind); it was Harris who got around 11 million less votes than Biden.

On election night,

Rhoda Morgenstern

reminded me of my cross-stitch project from a few years ago. Princess Leia in the style of the Obama/Shepard Fairey ‘Hope’ poster.

The bottom line: The party didn’t let Harris run as a real Democrat, in that Gen X/elder millennial sense. She did a phenomenal job campaigning on women’s right to our own bodies, but not so great on other policy issues (see: advocating for fracking even though she has a solid record on climate, not discussing the details of her economic plan enough for voters to understand it). Instead, now, the vision of what makes a Democrat is left hazy for younger voters and progressives and many more are turned away from politics writ large.

Trump’s voters are not all racist, misogynist, earth-burning, and want to maintain the current, untenable American empire - but they are more than ok with a candidate who behaves like he is and that is NOT simply and wholly a reaction to Democrats’ failures at the national level. To say that is dangerously naive and, I fear, a sign of a life not widely lived enough to understand the world.

The kindest version of me wants to think that perhaps there is some hope these Trump voters of color have held on to for a post-racial American political landscape they want to believe and vote into existence. It’s almost a French Égalité - we’re all just American in the way there are only French, no hyphenates, no other identity.

But, that would flatten us as a country. As annoying as some identity politics can be, those identities also can’t be disrespected or disregarded in the grand American story because pieces of each make us what and who we are as individuals, communities, and a country. I can’t believe I’m quoting Ronald Reagan in my newsletter but that “shining city on a hill” he loved to talk about doesn’t exist without our identities being respected as also-American.

I have no real answers except that going forward is a time for reforming Big Media and focusing on Small Media; in other words, I will continue my work at the Center for Community Media at the CUNY journalism school and hopefully a few other ventures to support hyperlocal and ethnic news outlets across the country to serve their communities and keep state and local elected officials accountable, rebuild trust, and maybe help improve our coverage of foreign news too to help Americans learn more about the larger world.

If you need something positive to look forward to, take this: I was on the ‘cities’ beat for a while years ago, covering the national mayors’ conferences, smart cities, what city governments were doing around the country. One thing every mayor I interviewed would say to me is that mayors can’t be as partisan as other politicians because cities can’t function that way.

So think of this as an opportunity to lean towards community groups, local parks associations, voter education efforts, and subscribing to community media outlets (and newsletters!) - anything where you can see the people you are trying to help. The slogan can’t be “when we fight, we win” it has to be “when we fight for each other, we win.”

That cross-stitch project above is from a set pattern, mostly. The rest of the ‘south Indian’ touches like her jewelry and jasmine flowers in her hair were all done freehand with mistakes along the way. Maybe that’s what the next four years looks like, using the base of what we have now, our instincts to help each other, and building on it to make it our own, more beautiful version.

That’s all for now, but I’ll be in your inbox and on your feeds again this week with more reading about and from South Asian American and Canadian journalists.